As we ride the wave of the tumultuous 2024 presidential election into the next four years, millions of Americans are left wondering: What happens now? Political tensions and the never-ending doomsaying news cycle seem to surround us on all sides. Regardless of which candidate’s bubble you filled in on your ballot, the uncertainty and polarization facing America is daunting.
Individuals on the left seem to have been taken down entirely by the election of Donald Trump. Amid the wailing and gnashing of teeth following Trump’s win of even the popular vote, numerous universities across the country have hosted “self-care” spaces in which students could mourn and process their post-election trauma. Co-workers are conspicuously missing from office spaces as they take their sick days on and around Election Day. At my own university, campus was unusually quiet the morning of November 6.
It’s perfectly understandable to be somewhat upset about the triumph of a candidate you don’t favor, especially one whom you see as a threat. What puzzles me is the intensity of this response. I doubt that those voting for Trump would have had the same reaction if Vice President Harris were now president-elect. Trump voters would be disappointed, likely frustrated, but I don’t expect the same demand for coloring books and late passes on homework. Extreme election grief seems to be largely one-sided. Why?
One probable cause is the constant catastrophizing in the media. A Republican president? Say goodbye to your “basic human rights,” voices online tell us. Abortion and LGBT issues were major talking points for Harris’ campaign, and though Trump isn’t as right-wing on these issues as the media often portrays him, the narrative persists.
The online fearmongers, from CNN to angry TikTok commentators, batter viewers with the message that it’s over. Their lives are over. America is over. Stripped of “basic human rights,” there is nothing left in this country for the progressives. They are told to rebel, or worse, give up.
Institutions of higher education that cancel classes following Election Day teach their students that the appropriate response to political misfortune is to have a breakdown. Students are being taught to catastrophize, to despair, to rage against their country that has given them the right to rage against it. Social media was flooded with unproductive anger after Trump won, full of vitriol but conspicuously lacking suggestions for steps forward.
Perhaps the difference between the right’s and the left’s reactions to the presidential election lie first and foremost in patriotism. A 2024 Gallup poll found that Republicans who said they were “extremely proud” to be an American was 25 percentage points higher than that of Democrats, only a minority of whom reported a high sense of patriotism. Republicans are far more likely to believe that America is worth saving, and it shows.
In spite of numerous recent losses—the most significant being Joe Biden’s election in 2020—Republicans have maintained a love for America. The right tends to hold the belief that America is not too far gone. There is work to be done, to be sure, but Republicans are not threatening to leave the U.S. They hang on to a deep faith in America, that our beautiful country will find her way back in the end.
The left tells a different story: We live in a dystopian, Handmaid’s Tale-esque nightmare that preys on the downfall of everyone who is not a straight white man. America has failed. Progressives are grieving lost hope in our country.
Both political sides are guilty of doomsaying, proclaiming disaster and crisis without leaving any room for hope. But no country will be “saved” through constant lamentation and mourning. In order to love our country, we should all take steps to rectify what we can without getting bogged down in despair. America needs hope.
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