ITM 6: Election Aftermath - Voices from America on Trump’s Victory

Liam Heffernan: 00:00:19

With reaction and insights to the biggest stories and breaking news from the USA and a little bit of history thrown in. This is America, A History in the Making. Hello and welcome to this special episode of America, A History in the Making.

It is the day after the: 2024

And joining me to discuss it instead of the usual parade of British people who don't really have any first hand experience of the election, I'm lucky to be joined by a batch of voters and US Citizens who can tell me more about what it's actually like to be in America at this particular time. So I'll go around the table and you can all introduce yourselves in turn. Felicia sure.

Felicia: 00:01:21

Happy to start off and thanks for having us. I guess. Liam Definitely a different sentiment that I'm joining you today than I thought. But my name is Felicia Jadczak.

I'm the co founder and co CEO of a consulting company called Inclusion Geeks. I am based in Western Massachusetts, which is also the traditional land of the Nipmuc, Pokumtic and Nonotak peoples.

And yeah, I will say I voted for Harris and I have a lot of thoughts that I'm still processing right now, but that's my quick intro. Thanks for having me on.

Liam Heffernan: 00:01:53

No. Welcome to the show. Felicia and Katie.

Katie: 00:01:57

Hi, I'm Katie McManus. I'm actually located, I love Felicia, that you included. The native lands. I'm located on Cape Cod in Massachusetts.

The native lands of the Wampanoag Native Americans. I'm a Harris supporter. I've been volunteering all summer and all fall and I own my own company. I'm a business strategist and money mindset coach.

And I also run a podcast called the Weenie Cast which inspires, hopefully inspires business owners to not just do good work that they love, but to also make a difference in the world.

Liam Heffernan: 00:02:32

That's amazing. Thanks Katie. And we'll drop a link to your show in the show notes as well for anyone that wants to check that out. And finally, Nathan and Shannon.

Shannon: 00:02:41

I'm Shannon Ray. I'm in Forest Falls, California and this is my hometown.

I'm on the traditional lands of the Yuchoviatan people in the mountains of Southern California. I'm an author and historian.

Nathan: 00:02:59

My name is Nathan Berger. I'm from Hampton Roads, Virginia. Originally the land of the Powhatan people. I now live in Forest Falls, California. I've been here about 10 years.

Liam Heffernan: 00:03:14

And firstly, I'm just gonna stick with you, Nathan Shannon, because you're in, so, so you're in quite a red part of California, am I right?

Shannon: 00:03:26

Yes. We're in San Bernardino county, which typically goes red.

And so going to the polling place is interesting because you sort of feel like you're dropping a little drop of blue into the, into the red in our, in our area. So.

And in California generally, since the results usually come in toward the latter part of the night, on election night, I think as a California, I always felt kind of a little bit like, oh, well, California always goes Democrat and I vote Democrat, so it kind of doesn't count in a way.

You know, it's, it's just sort of, oh, well, I vote because it's my civic duty, but I kind of know which way it's going to go anyway because it's California and especially in a red county. It just feels very marginalized in this, in a sense.

Liam Heffernan: 00:04:18

Yeah.

Do you feel like, because you're one of the last states to, for the, for the polls to close and, and because it's pretty much a given that Those, you know, 54 electoral votes are going to go to the Democrats every time. Do you think there's a problem with sort of voter apathy in California, particularly with Democrats?

Because, you know, there must be a sense of like, ah, why bother?

Shannon: 00:04:42

I think there is in a, in a way, I do know people who just don't vote because they sort of figure, oh well, it's going to go Democratic anyway and I'm just one person, it's not going to matter. And so I think there is a little bit of voter apathy maybe in California.

Liam Heffernan: 00:04:57

Yeah.

Shannon: 00:04:58

I don't know.

Liam Heffernan: 00:04:58

Yeah.

Nathan: 00:05:00

Yeah.

When I moved here, I was surprised at how red it actually is because I was always under the impression, you know, from the east coast that California was the land of the blue.

And when I got here, it was crazy to see all the pockets, how divided it is here and how there are whole towns that are completely red, whole counties. And it was a shock to see all the Republican leaning supporters. And it's like, how does this state go blue every four years?

Because there's so many Republican leaning people here. So it was, I couldn't believe it. I still can't.

Liam Heffernan: 00:05:43

Yeah, well, I mean, let's, let's bring in Katie and Felicia here because, you know, on, on that subject, I think we're probably all a little bit surprised at just how many states Trump picked up last night. What are your thoughts?

Felicia: 00:06:03

Yeah, I mean, I am happy to go first. This is Felicia speaking. I'm just, I'm. I said yesterday when people were asking me how I felt that I was nauseously optimistic.

And I think today I'm looking back and thinking the nauseous was my.

, you call it subconscious or: 2016

Katie: 00:06:49

I'm with you. I couldn't shake this feeling yesterday.

And I was taking a lot of hope from Alan Lichtman and the Seltzer poll, which, if you're not familiar, Alan Lichtman has never been wrong in his predictions, and he was predicting that Kamala would win, and the Seltzer poll show that she made incredible grounds in Iowa and has been accurate, I think, four out of five elections. And so I was really leaning on those things to as. As a gauge for things going the Democrats way.

And I hate to say it, but I'm actually not that surprised.

You know, racism and misogyny runs very deep in this country, and I think it's a lot easier to point to a group of people and say, these are the people you need to be afraid of, rather than, here is a doctrine that you need to be afraid of.

I think people's lived experience and like the little interactions that people have with others who they don't understand, they don't have the capacity to understand because they don't take a moment to get to know them. It's really easy to demonize and to dehumanize and vilify, and if Trump is really good at one thing, that's it. And I, I think we're also in a.

In kind of a crossroads with our education system. You know, our education system has really fallen down on teaching people a, how our government actually functions.

You know, there are a lot of folks who are. Who are pointing to Harris and saying, well, she didn't do anything over the last four years.

And you asked them, okay, well, what do you think she was able to do? And they're like, well, she should have done this, this and this.

Not understanding that the role of a vice president is literally just to break ties in the Senate. And so there's not the. There's not the knowledge base, I guess, for people to have an understanding of what is actually happening in our country.

Liam Heffernan: 00:08:56

But you're always going to be marred by that association to the administration because you are still part of the current administration, regardless of how much power you're able to swing. Right. And Harris was always going to struggle with that.

Katie: 00:09:09

Yeah. And it's unfortunate because in the United States, we do have a massive lag time for policies to come into effect and have impact. Right.

So a lot of the things that people are struggling with right now are actually things that Trump started when he was president last. And of course, you know, Biden is our president right now.

And so people are seeing things happening in their life, inflation and different issues that are truly affecting Americans. And they're thinking, well, this is the guy that's leading the country right now. He must be responsible. Not understanding that lag time.

Liam Heffernan: 00:09:45

Yeah.

And, and, you know, Nathan Shannon, I mean, you, you know, you're, you live in a little pocket of red within sort of California, which is, which is very blue. So you probably kind of are exposed more to both extremes of the argument.

But considering how, how close the polls were, are you surprised that there was a result as quickly as there was? Because I, I think I, I feel like myself and a lot of other people thought this was going to drag a lot.

Shannon: 00:10:18

Oh, I think we definitely thought that it was going to be at least a couple of days before we knew a result. I was very surprised when I got up and saw that they had already called it for Trump.

I think that when there's, you know, I don't know that I'm surprised. I'm with Katie and Felicia.

I don't know that I'm very surprised because if you have a siren blaring in your ears for four years, no matter how much you try to avoid it, you absorb, you're inculcated with that sense of alarm. And I think that was kind of playing in the background for all of us.

Even though we were hopeful that there would be a Harris presidency, I think we were all very hopeful.

But there is, there has been, it's been such a loud time for, with all of the Trump supporters that you can't completely avoid that, you know, and it's, I think it got through to all of us in a sense where we were, you know, alarmed and felt that it was going to actually happen, but didn't want it to happen. And we're hoping that it wouldn't happen.

And we've, you know, I see the, we've seen there's a little town, we're in the mountains, and there's a little town right at the Base of the mountains, where every week there would be people parading in pickup trucks with huge Trump flags and huge American flags and getting out and being very vocal and screaming at people in cars and all of that kind of stuff. And when that's just present all the time, you kind of get a sense that, that.

And I think I was hoping that it was just a very vocal minority rather than something that would move the.

Liam Heffernan: 00:12:08

Needle, you know, I mean, you know, speaking of minorities and Felicia, I'll bring you back in here. You know, one of the things that Trump managed to do successfully was to increase his vote share quite substantially amongst minority groups.

Particularly the Latino voters really seem to come out in support of Trump this time. What is it about Trump's message that you think is resonating with non male voters?

Shannon: 00:12:45

Well, California is very heavily Latino, as most people know. And, you know, in my interactions with Latino people, and I've asked people, you know, like, what is it that you find appealing about Trump?

And there's a strange dynamic with people who have come into the country legally and have become citizens of the US From Hispanic countries. They don't want other Hispanics that are not legal, that are not using the process and coming in legally to come in. And it's a very strange.

It's kind of like Latino on Latino hate, which is really strange. And I think that was a big part of it.

Felicia: 00:13:32

Yeah, I'll jump in here because I think what we're going to see, we've already seen it happen today, and we're going to see this the next days, weeks, months, whatever it's going to be to come. There's gonna be a lot of finger pointing and there's a lot of data analysis and slicing and dicing of who voted for who.

And yes, there were very surprising shifts in certain groups, like Latino men, for example. No surprise. Other groups, Asians across the board, voted overwhelmingly for Harris versus Trump.

Black women almost completely voted for Harris over Trump. So there will be a lot of finger pointing. But I think, and this, I think, speaks back to your point, Katie.

We need to zoom out a little bit, because when we look at marginalized and minority groups, what we have to remember is that there are very strong systems in place here. And so what we're seeing and why, I think we're seeing these, you know, it makes no sense to a lot of us. Right?

And we've seen this happen in: 2016

The reasoning is because we have a very deep seated white supremacist culture at play here in the United States. We are a country. I was joking with my husband this morning, well, sort of morbid joking.

I was joking that I thought it was going to be the series or the season finale of America, but it's actually the series finale of America. But we are a country that has been built on a very, very bloody, unstable, disgusting foundation of hurt, harm, supremacy. And it's coming back to.

It's coming, it's bubbling up for us, right?

So when we look at different groups of identity groups in terms of voters, what we see is that playing out because we're seeing internalized racism, we're seeing internalized misogyny, we're seeing internalized all the isms where we're seeing folks who are being told whether it's consciously or unconsciously to try to align themselves closer to whiteness.

There's so much to get into that we definitely don't have time to today, but there's so much to dig into around history of who was considered white in America and beyond and how that's always been tied to politics. And I think that's what we're seeing with these certain groups. And we're seeing that again overwhelmingly.

It's not up to any one marginalized group to, quote, unquote, save us from someone like Trump. It really comes down to who holds power and who wants to prop up these white supremacist systems and keep that in power.

And that's really, unfortunately, I think what we're seeing happening in real time right.

Katie: 00:16:18

Now, if I can. Yes. And all of that, Felicia, at the base of it, if we look at relationship.

So someone who was raised in an abusive family structure is far more likely to find a partner who's abusive. Right?

Not because they don't understand that, like this person's gonna hurt them, but because their nervous system is so accustomized to being treated that way that they're like, oh, well, this is normal. Right.

And I think they're, you know, wherever someone comes from, if they're gonna be a Trump supporter, I think they're coming from some kind of system where the leader is this kind of caustic, malignant, narcissistic personality. And while they may understand that they could be harmful, it is more familiar to their nervous system than someone who is not that.

And so I don't, I don't actually, I don't believe that it's actually a conscious decision.

I believe it's something that, like, they're making on a nervous system level because their nervous system doesn't understand that there can be better and that they deserve better. You know, I think this is also why a lot of Christian evangelicals are supporting Trump.

Even though he's been divorced twice, he's treated, he's cheated on every single wife he's ever had, he's a rapist, he's broken laws, he's been convicted. These are all things that are contrary to their gospel, and yet they're making an exception for him.

And I believe that comes from the people in these religious groups have had to make exceptions.

For leaders within those religious groups, there's some kind of, like, caveat that lets them off the hook for all of these moral transgressions that as a follower, they would never do. But because that person holds power and is someone that you're supposed to look up to, oh, well, they get to get off the hook.

And then you get shown someone like Trump and it's like, okay, well, he kind of fits that model. So he gets to, you know, get a free pass as well.

Liam Heffernan: 00:18:21

What I think is so mad looking at this from the outside is that I can kind of understand why people might gravitate towards the, the kind of, the, the showmanship and the bravado of Trump if the candidate he was up against was similarly unqualified or, you know, appeared as, you know, equally competent or incompetent as Trump. But he's up against a candidate who is immensely qualified and proven and experienced and clearly very intelligent and capable.

So does it simply come down to the fact that Kamala Harris doesn't look like what people imagine a president to look like?

Shannon: 00:19:20

stand the Trump phenomenon in: 2016

And I, and I felt at the time that there was a voting bloc. There was. I've seen him on tv. He's like a boss. So we should vote for him.

You know, that sort of very superficial level of non critical thinking and just buying into that cult of celebrity thing.

Liam Heffernan: 00:19:52

And it works for Reagan as well, right?

Shannon: 00:19:54

Yes, it happened for Reagan too. Oh, he's a movie star. We know who he is and we've seen him. And he plays characters that are rough and tough, that kind of thing.

And I think there's a certain part of the electorate that does play in that arena and that Kamala Harris just wasn't as big a celebrity kind of in a way as Trump for some people. I do think the fact that she's a woman played a huge part in it.

You know, that we in this country don't see women as powerful at all because of the deep misogyny that's sort of built into our, you know, our culture. And that. That was.

You know, I kept thinking this morning, okay, if it had been a male candidate, even a male candidate of color, would it have come out differently? I don't know what you think, Katie and Felicia, how the gender issue played, but I'd be interested in hearing what you think, too.

Katie: 00:21:02

Well, I think we've all heard all the people saying, well, she slept her way to the top.

And no one ever says that about a man, you know, And I mean, the fact that that would even be lobbied or lobbed at a presidential candidate is just absolutely disgusting.

Shannon: 00:21:21

It is.

Katie: 00:21:25

And I mean, it's not something that should be thrown at women, regardless of what position they're running for. I don't care if it's a bus person at a restaurant or President of the United States.

Like the fact that you're using your body to get some kind of position of power. I mean, it's a way to really degrade women and to reduce us down to the sum of our parts.

Felicia: 00:21:49

Yeah. I mean, the reality is, you know, Kamala Harris is a first generation, biracial, black South Asian woman.

And I think a lot of us thought that would be a unifying factor. And the reality is that we. We are not in the majority. The people who think that. Right. I think that the Democrats.

I don't think it's just her identities. I think that the political party is. Also has a huge part to play in it.

The whole way this played out, with Biden running at first, dropping out, endorsing versus having a primary the way that the Republicans had, even though, of course, they came out with Trump. So whatever. But we didn't have that chance to explore candidates. And now I am half Indian myself.

I desperately wanted to see Harris ascend to the presidency for multiple reasons, not the least of which being representation for me personally. But at the same time, would I have voted for her had there been other candidates? I don't know. But we will never know that.

And I think that the challenge with being a Democrat is that the Republicans will lie, they'll cheat, they'll steal, and they'll tell you to your face that they're doing it and do it anyway.

And for some reason, I'm sure there's a lot of reasons why I'm not deep enough into the political workings to be able to come up with a very succinct way of explaining it. But the Democrat Party has not been able to come together in order to come up with a meaningful plan to win.

And it's always about reacting and reacting. It's never about being proactive and bringing folks together. And so I think that's a big part of it, too.

I think she ran as brilliant a campaign as she could with the time allotted to her. And I think we're. I'm already seeing a lot of flipping even in these last few hours.

This morning, where the previous night people were like, this was the most amazing campaign ever. Look at all the things that happened. All these people who came together. This morning, I'm hearing and seeing this was the worst campaign ever.

She ran terribly. She didn't do this. She didn't appeal to these people. She didn't do this. The truth is somewhere in the middle. Right.

I personally think she did amazing with the way this played out. However, the Democrat Party overall has a lot to figure out in the next four years, in the next two years, really. Right.

We have a chance to bring in more folks in two years.

And I also don't want to lose sight of the down ballot elections and the down ballot initiatives that have passed or not passed as well, because we did see some wins and they, I don't know what that will translate into, but we have two black, I believe it's two black senators, I want to say, from Maryland and Delaware, both women. We have our first ever trans congressperson who was elected. I'm very afraid for them, given what Trump has told us he is going to do around gender.

But the fact remains that we elected our first ever trans congresswoman. And there's other wins as well across the country, too.

But, you know, ultimately, I think that, yes, her identities were never a help to her in this fight. And it's not just that alone.

Nathan: 00:25:10

I think one mistake that was made is Biden never expected to drop out of the race the entire four years. He was confident that he was going to be the nominee.

And because of that, he didn't really give room for Harris to come to the forefront and get her more exposure.

So him expecting to be reelected again, he was, you know, the way I see it, he was thinking, well, in my second term, I can push her forward and get her ready for her candidacy. But because he did drop out, and everything was so quick the last four years. She never had a chance to kind of show who she was.

And I think that that hurt a lot.

Liam Heffernan: 00:26:01

I mean, we criticized a lot of the time, you know, Biden for not dropping out because he would have been beaten badly by Trump. But, I mean, looking at the results and how a lot of the states ended up, I mean, okay, they might have been close, but.

But when you look at that map, there's a lot of red there. And, you know, the Rust Belt has gone red. You know, Trump has really kind of won by a landslide when you look just at the map.

Would Biden have done any worse?

Nathan: 00:26:37

I think so. I think, yeah, he would have. He would have done worse. He would have done worse.

Katie: 00:26:44

I think, you know, it's interesting because it's one of those. It's essentially a marketing problem that the Democrats have. You know, we all say, like, in. In the last eight years.

I don't know about you three, but my friends and I were all like, oh, my God. Like, I just want to not have to think about who's running the country. I don't want to hear that the President.

President's tweeting this and that and whatever every single day on the news. Like, why does that have to happen?

And I think we've quietly, very much appreciated the Biden administration for quietly doing the work of the country and getting things passed and Harris's dedication to her role as vice president and all these things. And yet, just because we want it doesn't mean it's good marketing. Right.

Like, one of the things that the Republican Party is really good at is regardless of whether they won or not, taking credit and just saying, hey, listen, we did this, you know, and banging their own drum about it. I think this is something that the Democrats have to learn. Well, we have to start doing better.

We have to start, like, taking credit for each tiny little win we get and announcing it far and wide to everyone so that it starts getting imprinted in everyone's minds. Oh, yeah, they did that. No. Yeah, they did that.

Because when we come to election time and we give them, like, a long list of all the things it doesn't permeate. Right. Because they're not pointing back to. Oh, yeah, I remember you guys talking about that.

Just like they do with Republicans and with Trump, like, they can point back to, oh, yeah, that. That psycho tweet I saw about this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I recall that. It becomes kind of like this amorphous thing that, like, oh, cool, yeah.

But you immediately forget about it because it's not already planted. The seed hasn't already been planted in your memory bank.

Felicia: 00:28:30

Yeah.

It goes back to what you were saying too, Katie, around the lag time and how policies are rolled out and impact people and how that timeline plays out. Because if we look at it like Biden has done so much in his presidency that has been very positive and he was handed a huge mess.

A lot of people say, have been saying, and I've been hearing this, you know, oh, well, we were better off four years ago. No, we weren't. Four years ago we were seeing body bags and COVID deaths and, you know, Trump supremely mishandled Covid.

Biden came in and dealt with that, dealt with all sorts of other stuff. So again, Biden's not my most favorite president either. I did vote for him.

I would have preferred a different candidate, but he did so much with what he was given. And to your point, Katie, like, nobody talks about it or even in the Democratic Party, we don't have the way to explain or showcase or push back.

And so it is a really strong marketing engine that has come up in this cult of personality and this cult of straight out lies. And the Democrats are playing, using a playbook for a game that does not exist anymore. And that's a huge, huge issue for us right now.

And so going forward, we're going to have to really rewrite it because we're literally talking about is this going to be a fascist country, is it going to be an authoritarian country? This is not going to be the same kind of ball game that we have had experience with up until this point.

And so it's not even just about figuring out how do we get better at marketing ourselves and highlighting our wins.

But we're really going to have to figure out what does pushing forward and resisting and making movement and progress look like when the landscape is so dramatically different and we are really in brand new territory here.

Shannon: 00:30:22

I think that, yeah, I think the biggest disappointment for me is that liberal values, like, are not embraced in this new environment, you know, and it's this sort of, this rise of nationalism and fascism that is emblematic of this win that is most disturbing.

You know, why are we not in this country embracing taking care of one another and the sort of more liberal values that we were founded on really, than taking this sort of, I mean, hate and greed won out last night. And that's, that's a very disappointing picture to have to look at.

Liam Heffernan: 00:31:16

The problem is that on the other side of the coin, the MAGA base.

And a lot of Republicans now would argue that Trump does represent the sort of the individual, the everyday person, the anti establishment, and the values that come with that.

So it just, to me, feels like the value systems between Democrats and Republicans are just so polarized that you can look at exactly the same thing and see the complete opposite.

Katie: 00:31:49

Whenever I think about the differences between Republicans and Democrats, especially in this current era we're living in, is I imagine, you know, someone walking into a bookstore that has a magazine rack. And my philosophy around buying magazines, most of the time, people buy magazines for the person they want to be. Right.

I don't know, I don't know if the rest of you have gone and like, bought like, you know, one of those holiday recipe magazines, and you're like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna be that person who makes all the fancy things for Christmas or for Thanksgiving. And then you never cook anything out of it, but you keep it around because that's kind of like you're attached to this idea of who you want to be.

Shannon: 00:32:22

It's aspirational.

Katie: 00:32:23

Yeah, it's aspirational, right. Like workout magazines and, you know, like Harvard Business Review, like, who actually sits down and reads that cover to cover. Right.

It's something that lays around your house that you can say, oh, yeah, well, I'm the kind of person who buys this kind of magazine. And I think that is what the Republican Party has gotten really good at selling. Its constituency is like, you get to vote for who you want to be.

Right. You want to be rich, you want to be this, you want all these things. We're the party of that, and so come and vote for us. You get to join our club.

Right.

And versus, you know, a Democrat who walks into a bookstore, they go to the children's section, they pick out, you know, a few different children's books that they loved as a child, and then they donate it to a school, you know, because they want to share that love of reading, that empathy building that, you know, some children's books are really good at. And unfortunately, that's just not as sexy.

Felicia: 00:33:24

Well, and also, like, to your point with this metaphor, Katie, you know, I think I was looking at the stats this morning, and Trump's voter base is by and large more trending towards, you know, less educated, uneducated folks, Democrats and Harris's voter base trending much more on college educated and educated in general.

And, you know, I do think that there is, there has been a breakdown in both just how we have failed our educational systems in general, and a breakdown in critical thinking, which is across the board, not just limited to any one generation. And, you know, the other thing is that there will always be this element of appealing to. And I think that's where the Democrats don't do that.

I don't think they should. I don't think they should have to. But I think the Republicans do this very, very well. They appeal to fear.

And that is where there are a lot of fearful, angry people. A lot of them are white men. Right. But not exclusively, as we know.

And there's just a lot of hatred and fear and the Republican cult and the Republican Party and everyone around this, even though we've seen all of Trump's former Cabinet members saying they would never vote for him or they would not work for him again, and establishment Republicans saying they did not support him or whatever, but he still represents this message of, I'm addressing the fears and the hate that you have right now. And the Democrat Party is addressing love. And that's just not. That was not the right message as a term.

Unfortunately, the support, the unity, the love has not been as strong as us versus them. Right. And I think that we've seen this with Reagan and in general with American politics over the, you know, generations.

It's been this whole individualistic approach, right. That's really come up and built up a lot of how America operates. And I think that's playing a big part in this.

And I also don't want to discount too, you know, we're of course, not just in our own little bubble in the world. We're connected to world events.

And, you know, one of the things that I've been doing this morning myself has been reading BBC News because I don't want to support the New York Times, like, what a time to have a strike, right? But also get a sense of what the rest of the world is thinking.

And I have folks in my own family who are, you know, not have not been born in America, but we have to think about things like the war on Gaza right now. I don't think it was significant enough to have tipped the balance in favor of Trump versus Harris.

But in my industry, and I do a lot of DEI work and management consulting work, and there are a lot of people who refuse to vote for Harris even though they would not have voted for. They did not vote for Trump, but they also refused to vote for Harris because of her quote, unquote policies in Israel and Gaza and Palestine.

Now, I do think that this is a very complicated take And I don't agree with it necessarily, because, again, as vice president, I don't think she has sweeping power to enact certain policies on an international level in the same way that people think she does. But at the same time, the way that she addressed things like Israel and, you know, other. Other things going on outside the U.S.

people are scared, upset, and they don't understand that all of it ties together. So they're looking for someone to blame.

And I think that it's a really easy pathway to blame someone who doesn't look like you or speak to you or sound like you when you can go to somebody who is feeding you what you want. And that's what we've seen happen as well.

Liam Heffernan: 00:37:17

Yeah, and there's, there's, there's just so much we can unpack there about, you know, how and why the election went the way it did. And, and, you know, all the, you know, the policy issues as well, and the whole kind of worms around, you know, the stance on the Middle East.

There's just, there's so many moving parts that ultimately determined the outcome of this election.

And I'd love to talk to you all in a lot more detail about that, but in the interest of time and tiredness, I'd like to just wrap up by kind of looking ahead and wondering what you all think the next four years are going to bring to you and to America.

Shannon: 00:38:07

It looks like a very dark four years ahead to me.

What's been really interesting is the friends that I've been texting with and chatting with through the night and this morning, when the, when the result became apparent, there was a sense of, well, we're in California, so we have some immunity. Right.

We're in a liberal state and it's, you know, I think we're, I don't know, I probably got it wrong, but California is like the fourth largest economy.

And for years and years and years, there's actually been an initiative floated over and over again about Washington, Oregon and California joining and then seceding from the union. I've been hearing a lot of that this morning.

And so we kind of feel like, oh, well, we have some immunity to whatever the crazy is going to be over the next four years, but I'm not sure about that. I think we are going to see an economic collapse, probably under Trump's tariffs.

Certainly we are going to be in an unsustainable economy because the tariffs will pass, be passed on to the consumer. If we think we can't afford groceries now, just watch out for the Next two years, I think it's going to be internationally.

I think he's going to get us into some really difficult situations. I do projects for the US Forest Service as a historian and under the Trump administration, the U.S. forest Service, USDA, was just gutted.

And for instance, on the ground in this area, in a, in about a 300 mile radius, they cut back. There was only one law enforcement officer for the forest for 300 miles.

Now, under the Biden presidency, we have eight law enforcement officers who've now come to the mountains to do our policing for us in the forest. And under Trump will probably go back to one again because they just took all the funds. They gutted everything from usda.

So I know that my projects will be stalled for U.S. forest Service because it's going to, there will be serious cutbacks we saw in the four years with Trump before.

So I think on the ground, we're going to see some really, really severe impacts from this presidency just in very, very practical ways, in the way that we live and the things that we do.

Nathan: 00:40:43

Well, I can understand the anger of, and I know when people say, like, the blue states should secede, I know they're mostly joking because states can't and shouldn't secede. And just because you don't like the outcome of an election doesn't give anybody the right to just say, we're gone.

I think there's going to be a lot of cruelty. I'm optimistic. I think, you know, the center will hold and we will survive.

But I think now that now that Trump is unleashed and doesn't have to worry about reelection in four years and has done this once before and he knows what he, in his mind did wrong and did right now we're looking at, you know, a Trump 2.0. This is going to be a lot of trampling of dignity for a lot of people. And there's not a lot of people who are going to stand up to him.

So the more we all do stand up to him, the better we'll be.

Felicia: 00:42:07

Yeah, I'll say I'm scared, I'm tired. I know people I've heard a lot of.

I've been in touch, as I'm sure a lot of you have, or all of you have been with friends and community and family and just touching base with people. And it's, you know, sentiments that at least in my circles are felt across the board for some folks who are more privileged.

While we may be feeling, you know, impacts like on the economic side and, you know, in terms of our world affairs and things like that, in terms of day to day daily life, probably not much will change. You know, Katie and I also live in a, somewhat, very much a blue bubble as well.

And that's something my husband and I were talking about this morning. And you know, he's a straight white man.

And, you know, I'm in some ways grateful that that's my partner right now, you know, which is something I hate to say as someone who is biracial themselves, but he, his point of view is that, you know, we live in Massachusetts, not much will change. We live in a bubble, it'll be okay.

But what scares me is that with Trump in power at this point, given everything that, you know, Shannon and Nathan, you both shared just now, that we will be seeing not just lasting changes that are going to be deeply harmful in the next four years, but also for much, much longer. We have the Supreme Court that is at play that he's already influenced dramatically.

We have seen what it looks like when he guts our federal agencies and I'm afraid for what that will look like in the future. He's already told us that he's going to put RFK Jr.

A man who told the world that a worm ate his brain, that he's going to put that man in charge of public health. You know, climate change is a real situation.

It is a beautiful, very unseasonably warm, 70 something degree day right now in Massachusetts in November. It should not be like this right now. So I'm just, I'm scared. I'm also afraid for my business.

We have already been impacted quite dramatically in this year leading up to this election. And it really is a coin toss as to what will happen on that front.

And I'm just worried for, you know, folks that I'm in community with who are marginalized, who are from populations that are going to be deeply impacted by this, who do not have the privilege or the means or the opportunity to move or to take care of themselves in ways that they need to and what that's going to look like. So, you know, we will continue to fight and resist, but it is, it is a very dark time ahead, I think.

Katie: 00:45:05

I don't mean to sound hyperbolic, but I think a lot of people are going to die. I, you know, best case scenario, it's going to be a lot of women.

And I'm saying this not to be cruel or to make fun of it, but I think it's going to be a lot of women who expect to be able to get access to health care during their pregnancy and think that there's going to be an exception for them and who voted for Trump and will be shocked and their families will be really shocked when they don't come home from the hospital, if they're even admitted to the hospital. I think depending on how seriously we can take Amethyst Word, I think there might also be some political violence aimed at opposition.

I wouldn't be surprised if there is something not quite pandemic like that happens again.

However, if we do have JFK Jr in charge of our Department of Health, then, you know, I think we can all, we can all imagine what might happen if another coronavirus kind of thing were to pop up somewhere in the world.

I think that it's going to be really important for those of us who are active and who are willing to, to stand up, because I think it's going to be really hard to go after more people than just a few dissidents. And I am, I am truly very scared. I'm scared not necessarily for myself. I'm a white woman who lives in Massachusetts.

Like Felicia said, it's a very liberal state. I'm terrified for women in red states in the South. I'm terrified for members of marginalized groups.

I keep thinking of that, that quote, I'm going to completely mess it up of, you know, someone in Nazi Germany who said, you know, at first they came for this group and I wasn't part of that group, and so I didn't do anything. And then they went for this other group and I wasn't a member of that group, and so I didn't do anything.

And then they came for my group and there was no one left.

And I think it's so important for us going forward to truly stand up for every single group, even if, even if they are the ones supporting Trump, to stand up and protect them from themselves.

Liam Heffernan: 00:47:32

Yeah, that's a really, a really powerful note to end on.

And genuinely, this has been incredibly eye opening for me just to hear firsthand how the result of the election is affecting you all, and I thank you all for joining me to share that. I hope that, that our listeners have sort of found something from that as well. I don't know what the future is going to hold.

I don't think any of us really do. But I think the next four years are going to be unpredictable and scary, and we're not going to be short of things to talk about.

So I wish you all well, being U.S. citizens at a time when I don't think any of us around the world are particularly comfortable with what's happening in your country at the moment.

But thank you again for joining me on this to share that and really kind of hopefully get that across. So we're going to wrap up and it's been a crazy day. It's been a really crazy day.

And we are going to be back with the podcast on Saturday and following Tuesday and every week thereafter to continue breaking down the biggest issues and questions from American history to try and understand and continue understanding what the heck is going on today. So thank you, Felicia, Katie, Nathan, Shannon for joining me on this episode.

And for anyone listening to this, do click follow so that all future episodes appear in your feed as well.

And if you can take 10 seconds out your day to just leave a rating and a review and just help us get up those algorithms, that that makes us all very happy. But wherever you are in the world, enjoy the rest of your week, get some sleep and we'll see you on the other side.

Shannon: 00:49:24

Thank you for having us.

Katie: 00:49:25

Thank.

Liam Heffernan: 00:49:37

Thanks for listening to a history in the making.

If you enjoy the show, please go and check out our main episodes, which drop every Tuesday, and we've linked to some relevant episodes in the show notes for you as well. Remember also to visit our Patreon page where you can support our show for just a few dollars a month.

You'll unlock some awesome perks and it helps us to keep the show going, which we really appreciate. Thanks again for listening. And until next time in pod, we trust.