Written by Eloise Robertson
My fear of the election overcame weeks of my life: my first read in the morning, and last at night, became the New York Times which I desperately hoped could rest my worried mind. It never did. Occupying my every thought; every conversation turned onto this crisis. They still do. Today, as much as two weeks ago, these conversations only magnify the issue as I am faced by the complacency around me. Complacency, certainly. No other word quite does justice to the permeating danger of political disinterest.
In my frustration I personalise the issue, so it doesn’t overwhelm me. Little narratives like ‘I’m just scared because my boyfriend lives in DC’ help me shy from the crux of the issue, allowing me to localise it, to pretend only America will be affected by what happened. Now that Trump has won, we can no longer afford to explain it away. This election feels personal to me because it is a rhetorical reckoning on women’s rights. Last week, tens of millions of people were asked: Should men and women be equal? They said no.
We are so far past the time for the cosy narrative that it doesn’t matter who wins. This, I fear, will only become clearer over the next four years. In emphasising the difference between Harris and Trump, I do not seek to downplay the very real policy areas I criticise both for: supporting Israel, defending gun rights, and harshness on crime, to name just a few. My contention is rather that what separates them, particularly in a nation so hellbent on rhetoric and identity, is so much greater than what unites them. This is typically considered an unhelpful narrative, with Harris herself contending the very opposite in her campaign: what unites us is greater than what divides us. People fear recognising the divisiveness of this election because it puts them under so much pressure. It puts each American citizen under a great onus to rightly chose America’s pathway. My fear is that to let this onus go would be to wave goodbye the true value of our vote.
Worldwide we fought – the working class, people of colour, women – for the right to vote. Convicts in America continue to. If our voice is made arbitrary by shying from the harsh realities of what a miscast vote means, then that fight was for nothing. To constitute a moral action our vote should be meaningful, we should know and feel that it makes a genuine difference. Even if to know and feel this is scary. Yet time and again I see this ambivalence in the world around me. Nowhere is immune, but nowhere have I felt such potent political disengagement as here in Australia. Perhaps a damaging side effect of the monotony of political activity under compulsory voting, perhaps mere laziness of my young peers. The result is the same: the air is free of unrest, of tension, and therefore of the necessary passion which ignites political care.
Whilst this lack of passion has no clear gendered divide, the level of pride taken in it is glaringly disparate. In the lead up to election male friends of mine consistently encouraged me ‘not to get my hopes up’ or told me I should be embarrassed to support Harris. The first sentiment displayed a lack of emotional connection with the impending result. The second highlights the narrow focus on Israel-Gaza many friends of mine took in the election. I will never downplay this fear nor fail to recognise that what is happening in Gaza is a women’s issue more extreme than any threat to American women. I will, however, echo the sentiment of Rebecca Traisters that a vote for Harris would preserve the kind popular access to political action needed to protest the US role in the Middle East, a vote for Trump would not. The one thing uniting my male friend’s sentiments is the patronising attempt to downplay how personally I take this election. How personally I take this result.
What my friends failed to understand was the rhetoric power of this election. Whilst it increasingly appears the vote swung largely on the economy, even those who voted Trump on this basis are somewhat surprised he actually won. Trump voter Monica Leigh expressed that whilst she had to vote Trump based on her own economic fears, she hoped that if it wasn’t the moral decision the country wouldn’t elect him. It gives pause to question what we are trying to achieve with our vote. I wonder whether it is snooty of me to sit here upset that people in a country I don’t live in, in socio-economic positions I have never faced, voted for someone they truly believed would improve their day-to-day lives. Still, I cannot shake the feeling we should all be more upset.
Trump has run in three elections and won two of them. The common denominator in the elections he won was the gender of his opposing candidate. There is something overtly meaningful when an accused sexual assaulter finds it easier to win over the public than a woman does. Now, Harris did not run on the platform of identity. In fact, her race and gender played a far less significant role in her campaign than Trump’s did in his – look no further than the appeal of his ‘strong man’ rhetoric to the men of my generation. When Harris’ identity as a woman cohered with her pro-choice policy this was no radical feminist take but merely the party line. I do not claim voting for Harris is a feminist action, though I do claim voting for Trump is a misogynistic one.
My friend showed me an Instagram post last week which read “Let it never again be said that rape accusations ruin men’s lives” with a picture of Trump behind it. To me, that is the defining rhetorical slap in the face of this result. America voted against free choice, against believing the victim, and against their own rights to stand up and defend those who will increasingly need their help. We need to stop isolating ourselves from this picture and start thinking about what signal this sends out to the rest of the world. My friends continue to say this ‘could only happen in America’, and Trump supporters are simply ‘idiots’. This is an easy rhetoric which we’ve clung onto since 2016 and it is far past its sell-by date. No one, anywhere, is immune to the dangerous rise of far-right populism nor the online rhetoric which bolsters it, poisoning young men against women and minorities. The result of this election showed us Roxanne Gay was right; women’s rights are alienable. Any person who loves a woman must be vigilant about this. When the global scale tips towards the patriarchy in such an obvious way, perhaps its finally time we sit up and take note. Better, we stand up and start shouting.