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Logan Cyrus

Ouch. That hurts. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/11/06/how-donald-trump-won-presidential-election/" target=_blank>The people have spoken</a>, and many of us can’t quite process what they said: <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/donald-trump/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Donald Trump</a>, despite everything, will be president again. Somehow, we have to find ways to cope with this incomprehensible reality.

I don’t think moving to Canada, New Zealand or Uruguay is going to be the best option for most people. Emigrating is more complicated and expensive than it looks. And the same far-right nationalism that Trump embodies is afflicting countries around the world.

The first step is understanding what just happened. The polls showing an impossibly tight race between Trump and Vice President <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/kamala-harris/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Kamala Harris</a> in the seven decisive swing states turned out to be right. Trump has been narrowly declared the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2024/11/06/whats-next-2024-election-swing-states-senate-house-popular-vote/" target="_blank">winner in five of them</a> — Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Michigan and Georgia — and appears on track for slim victories in Arizona and Nevada as well.

It was always the case that the slightest nudge could topple all seven states in the same direction. I had thought Harris might sweep them because just enough voters shared her passion about reproductive rights and the threat Trump poses to our democracy. Instead, Trump won the battlegrounds by convincing just enough voters — many of whom chose Joe Biden four years ago — that he will champion their interests.

Despite all the predictions, African Americans did not defect from the Democratic Party in significant numbers; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/interactive/2024/exit-polls-2024-election/?itid=lk_inline_manual_4" target=_blank>exit polls</a> showed Harris winning 86 percent of the Black vote. But the Latino vote shifted in the GOP’s favor. Harris beat Trump by just eight percentage points among Latinos, compared with <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/takeaways-trump-win-harris-election-2024-president-race-rcna177675" target=_blank>Biden’s 33-point advantage</a> with this group in 2020. And among Latino men specifically, exit polls found, Trump actually beat Harris by 10 points.

However, this might be less of a Latino problem for Democrats than a working-class problem. Trump appears on course to win the national popular vote — the first such feat for a Republican <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/11/06/kamala-harris-loses-presidential-election/" target="_blank">since 2004</a> and only the second since 1988. Biden, you recall, beat Trump by 7 million votes. The reason for the shift is that Trump’s vote share increased in states Harris won, and it appears that many of the converts were blue-collar voters.

For example, Harris won New Jersey by five percentage points — a sharp drop-off from Biden’s 16-point margin in 2020. Passaic County, in the northern part of the state, is normally a  working-class Democratic stronghold. This year, Trump narrowly won it.

I realize all these numbers are not particularly soothing. But coping with a situation has to begin with looking it in the face. Despite everything, Trump managed to<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/11/06/how-donald-trump-won-presidential-election/" target=_blank> broaden his support</a> this time around. We might not understand that, but we have to accept it as fact.

The second step is to refrain from second-guessing the choices Harris and her campaign made. From Biden’s withdrawal to Election Day, she had just 3½ months to barnstorm the country and introduce herself to an electorate that has known Trump for decades. As the sitting vice president, she was inextricably linked to an incumbent whose approval rating, fairly or not, <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/" target=_blank>hovers around 40 percent</a> — usually a sign that the opposition party is about to capture the White House.

Harris and her party staged a flawless convention. She embarrassed Trump in their only debate. Her rallies were huge and full of joy. She raised <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/09/harris-campaign-1-billion-fundraising/" target=_blank>more than a billion dollars</a> and had a vast field operation to identify her voters and get them to the polls. I can think of nothing she could have done. If Trump were winning by a thousand votes here and a few hundred there, that would be one thing. But this victory is solid.

The final step, and the hardest for me, is to come to terms with the role misogyny and racism played in Harris’s defeat.

That these ugly forces  played some part in this election is clear to me, but I have no way to quantify their impact. I do know that Trump was exploiting bigotry when he said  Harris has a “low IQ” and  described her laughter as “cackling.” Of course, I remember the crushing disappointment of 2016, when it looked as if Hillary Clinton would break the glass ceiling. And I know that many veterans of that campaign hoped and believed that this time, with Harris, the barrier would finally be shattered.

I believed all along that Harris was being held to the highest possible standard while Trump could get away with saying anything that happened to cross his mind, no matter how transgressive or irresponsible. Like Ginger Rogers dancing with Fred Astaire, Harris had to run the campaign backward and in high heels.

It is unfair that Americans chose someone like Donald Trump over someone like Kamala Harris, and I fear the nation and the world will regret that decision. I’m going to be angry and frustrated. But I’m not going to spend all my waking hours stewing over the fact that Trump is going to be president. I’m going to follow the news — that’s my job — but I won’t take his nonsense personally. I’m going to find a better politics-life balance and catch myself when I start obsessing over the latest outrage.

Trump is getting back into the White House. Don’t let him back into your head.

Post Opinions wants to know: How are you managing stress in the immediate aftermath of the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/election-2024/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">2024 election</a>? And what music do you listen to in difficult times? <a href="https://thewashingtonpost.formstack.com/forms/2024_election_self_care" target=_blank>Share your thoughts with us.</a>

2009 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary

Coal to Cream: A Black Man’s Journey Beyond Color to an Affirmation of Race (Free Press, 1999)

Last Dance in Havana: The Final Days of Fidel and the Start of the New Cuban Revolution (Free Press, 2004)

Eugene Robinson writes a column on politics and culture and hosts a weekly online chat with readers. In a three-decade career at The Washington Post, Robinson has been city hall reporter, city editor, foreign correspondent in Buenos Aires and London, foreign editor, and assistant managing editor in charge of the paper’s Style section.

Eugene Robinson

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