I thought Kamala Harris was going to win. I said, repeatedly, that I thought she would win the 2024 presidential election in a landslide. I found all the talk of a “close” election wrong-headed in overemphasizing polling and being anti-feminist. After all, her candidacy and campaign seemed to spark such excitement and enthusiasm even amongst some of us who don’t do electoral politics.

And, yet now, the morning after the election I think I was wrong about all this in crucial ways. I thought Harris would win because she was centering reproductive rights in her campaign. She was talking about freedom to choose. Women’s bodies were being acknowledged. This was in stark contrast to Trump and his racist misogyny.

The choice seemed clear to me, even for white women who had supported Trump in the past. If they were pro-reproductive rights, they would be anti-Trump. The overturning of Roe v. Wade had changed all this in my mind. But this was a wrong assumption. Most of the state initiatives to reinstate abortion rights passed in states that still voted for Trump. So for many, support for abortion rights does not undermine voting for Trump.

Why assume that people do not vote in contradictory ways? Voting is more complicated and fraught. After all, I am an anti-imperialist feminist who is radically opposed to the genocide in Gaza and now Lebanon. Yet I was willing to vote for Harris, who refused to say she would end the supply of bombs. Since the morning after the election I am more critical of my decision to do this. And more committed than ever to mobilize for peace in the middle east.

Back to election night. You can imagine what I thought when the votes started coming in. I had expected a runaway victory but instead Trump, early on, kept getting the electoral votes. How could this be? Were the polls that I had said were skewed and outdated, right? After a couple of hours of watching several different news stations — CNN, MSNBC, Democracy Now!, PBS — I revised my expectations downward, and admitted to myself that it might be close, but she would still win. Not until around one o’clock in the morning did I admit that she was probably going to lose. And she did.

I, like so many others, could not believe that Trump had won, and handily. Nor that he won the popular vote by several million. And he won in just about every voting group except Black men and women. How could this misogynist, convicted rapist, and racist get this many votes? He is gross and unkind and a bully. He railed and spoke incoherently as the campaign slogged along and yet he was beating Harris? Are we that racist and misogynist and delusional as a people?

I am devastated. I am thinking, this cannot be happening again. How is it possible that so many MAGA supporters remain so committed to him? He is a convicted rapist. He is a conman businessman.

Who in the hell believes in this guy?

The rest of the night was long. I slept fitfully and spent the next morning speaking with friends and comrades, feeling dispirited and devastated. I started writing because of all the queries I was getting from friends: What to do?

But the morning after the vote, I first took some time just to breathe and feel and think about what had happened. At first, I felt emptied of energy and commitment. I was just deeply sad. And disappointed. And angry. And despondent.

But by afternoon I started remembering 2016 and how so many of the political activists I work with in the climate disaster movement, decarcerate now, and abortion and reproductive justice movements organized after Trump’s election. We built a coalition of coalitions movement dedicated to working against Trump’s racist anti-Muslim initiatives. And I reminded myself that we will organize to protect each other like we did when we went out to the airports to protect our Muslim brothers and sisters from the Muslim bans. We will organize our coalitions to unite to build a resistance for democracy. We have done this before, and we will do it again.

To those of you still wondering what you can do, I answer: find each other and organize. Grab your posse. We will be at abortion clinics, and we will build protections against deportations. We will publicize our Coalition of Coalitions, like in 2016, and activate our organizations for whatever we need. Talk and connect with each other and we will build the RESISTANCE that we must have. Our hope and determination are what Trump/ers want to smash. So, we must activate our movements for justice and build coalitions.

First, we must prioritize an immediate demand to Biden/Harris for a middle east ceasefire, and peace alongside the return of hostages, while ending all military aid and bombs to Israel.

We will fight for abortion and full access to health care.

We will put our bodies between the police and those targeted for deportation.

We will stand by and with our trans children.

We will guarantee access for our disabled comrades.

We will openly love and protect our gay sisters and brothers.

We will put our bodies in front of our Black and Brown comrades for whatever may come.

We will become resistance movements, again. We will protect Trump’s enemies and become comrades for democracy when we do so.

We will call for anti-fascist demonstrations in our towns and cities so we can be with and see each other.

This is a dark time. Bullies are fully in charge. But we have the courage and the love that is always dangerous for those protecting their own power and privilege.

Many of us voted in this election to keep Trump from another presidency. His lawlessness is a serious threat to most of us. His ignorance fuels hardship for others. He did not care if we died from COVID. He said to shoot Black Lives Matter activists in the legs.

Even though many of us do not believe that electoral politics are ever enough to build democracy, we thought it was a necessary site of struggle this time around. But now we can use the coalitions we built and activated in the 2024 election for Harris, for the rest of us. This election initially benefitted from existing mobilized communities in radical and liberal spaces to support Harris’ nomination. Now, let us take our movements into more radicalized agendas for democracy, at home and abroad.

Instead of using our extra-electoral political power to push Kamala as our president to be more democratic, we will use our acumen to hold Trump accountable and radicalize our movements from there.

Kamala Harris gave her concession speech Wednesday afternoon at Howard University. As she spoke, she said: “The light of America’s promise will always burn bright as long as we never give up and as long as we keep fighting. While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign.” Never give up the fight for the right to determine our bodies. The fight is long and hard, so keep fighting, “do not despair,” and mobilize.

So let us radically organize for a fully meaningful democracy for us all. This means that when we fight for self-determination for our bodies, we include Palestinian women — to be freed from bombings and mutilation and death. Our feminisms must be anti-imperial, always.

If Kamala had won, we would be pushing to radicalize her neoliberal feminism to include more of us, at home and abroad. Now our new site of struggle is crystal clear, against the misogynist-racist fascism of Trump and MAGA.

We can do this because we must. And a few thoughts to share that always guide me:

Never do anything you do not believe in.

Always speak up and out even when it feels impossible.

Do not fear being afraid, and you will not be fearful.

Silence is more dangerous than you think.

Do not wonder if you are ready — and then you are ready.

As Alexei Navalny echoed: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.”

The last few days since voting has been a painful journey. But it has been clarifying. In this struggle we must continually radicalize ourselves for and with democratic camaraderie. So find your people. They are there. And then as we take care of each other we will build the democracy we need.

Zillah Eisenstein is a noted international feminist writer and activist and Professor Emerita, Political Theory, Ithaca College.  She is the author of many books, including “The Female Body and the Law” (UC Press, 1988), which won the Victoria Schuck Book Prize for the best book on women and politics; “Hatreds” (Routledge., 1996), “Global Obscenities” (NYU Press, 1998),  “Against Empire” (Zed Press, 2004), and most recently, “Abolitionist Socialist Feminism” (Monthly Review Press, 2019).

Header photo by Phil Hearing on Unsplash.