Where Do We Go From Here?
Thirty years after Wyatt Tee Walker and James Farmer debated Malcolm X on Open Mind, they returned for a discussion. Both men concluded that in the 1960s they were too optimistic about the possibility of change in America. Walker, in particular, admitted that Malcolm had a more accurate understanding of where America was at the time than Walker and others in the civil rights movement did.
Donald Trump has once again been elected as president of the United States and that exchange from Open Mind came to my mind. It came to my mind because in 2008, when Barack Obama was elected as president of the United States, some felt that America had finally changed where race was concerned. In hindsight, those who felt so were perhaps too optimistic about the possibility of change in American society much as Walker and others in the civil rights movement of the 1960s had been. Trump’s reelection reminds us of the reality of where America currently is with race.
Obama himself was optimistic about America’s potential to change. Years before he was elected as president, Obama had famously declared that there was no red America or blue America. Obama envisioned a truly united America. Obama remained optimistic about America’s future when he declared in 2016 that he did not believe that Trump would be elected president. Trump is now about to serve his second term. The optimism and belief in a united America has always clashed with the reality of what America was and continues to be. Trump’s reelection is a reminder of this reality.
In the aftermath of Trump’s election, there is a great deal of concern, worry, and anxiety over what will happen to the nation moving forward. Democrats are left scrambling to figure out what went wrong. The finger-pointing among some Democrats has already begun. Bernie Sanders issued a statement criticizing the Democratic Party for abandoning work class people. This statement prompted a response from the DNC chair, Jaime Harrison, who strongly disagreed with Sanders’ statement.
There are several reasons for why Democrats lost. There are many Americans who do believe that the Democratic Party abandoned working class people — a perception that was not helped by the number of celebrities who publicly campaigned for or endorsed Kamala Harris. Frustration over cost of living was indeed one of the factors that helped Trump to win. Others have argued that Harris lost because her campaign did not do enough to distance itself from Joe Biden’s presidency. The Biden’s administration's continued support for Israel was yet another factor which hurt Harris’ campaign.
The other factor that resulted in Trump’s victory is that nothing Trump did was enough to turn away voters. No amount of scandal or controversy — which include losing a criminal case and a sexual abuse civil case — turned voters away from Trump. Trump actually gained more support and for the first time, won the popular election. That Americans were willing to tolerate the racist and misogynistic conduct certainly did not bode well for Harris, who was running to be the nation’s first black woman president.
For the Democratic Party there are serious questions about what went wrong and what needs to be corrected. This is not like 2016 where Democrats lost, but still won the popular vote. The result from 2024 was a clear rejection of the Democratic Party by the majority of Americans. As for my readers, the lessons which should be drawn from this election is that electoral politics alone will not save us.
Leading up to the election, there was some concern over polling which suggested that a large number of black men were supportive of Donald Trump. Democrats were concerned enough about this that it led to Obama admonishing black men for their lack of support for Harris. In the end, 78% of black men voted for Harris. It was lower than Democrats would have liked, but it was also much higher than the number of white men and women who voted for Harris. And Trump won nearly half of the Latino vote.
I make this point because Democrats did not lose because of anything that the black community did or did not do. There is only so much the black community can do in an election where the majority of white voters decide to back Trump. I state this not to instill a sense of hopelessness, however.
The path forward is to recognize that change has never come through electoral politics alone. The most significant changes which have come in American history have come not from voting, but through coordinated mass movements. African Americans did not vote to get the right to vote. Likewise, women in America did not vote to get the right to vote. These efforts involved mass movements which advocated for change. This is true of other nations as well. In the British Caribbean, the colonial government had denied universal suffrage to the masses of Caribbean people. It took mass movements for the Caribbean masses to earn the right to vote. Similarly, apartheid came to an end in South Africa after decades of struggle against a system which restricted the rights of black people in South Africa. The point is that for black people, men and women, to even enjoy the ability to vote required serious mass movements which were committed to change.
What we must do moving forward is to become as actively engaged as we can in advocating and working for change. This can take multiple forms such as joining an organization or doing volunteer work. It could be joining or forming mutual aid groups. It could advocating for or lobbying for policy changes. Whatever it is that you decide to do, always remember that the civic duty of a citizen does not begin nor end with voting. I close with the words of Marcus Garvey who reminded us: “Chance has never yet satisfied the hope of a suffering people. Action, self-reliance, the vision of self and the future have been the only means by which the oppressed have seen and realized the light of their own freedom.”
