On the morning of 9/11/2001 I woke up, turned on NPR as I got dressed, and heard a report that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I turned on the television just in time to see the second plane hit. It was surreal. It was gutting. I vacillated between disbelief and horror. But I knew immediately that the entire world had just changed, and the change was going to be awful.

Same thing happened yesterday morning. I woke up, turned on NPR as I dressed, and heard the unthinkable news that Donald Trump had won the 2024 election. Disbelief, horror, and the same sinking awareness that the entire world had just changed. And the change is going to be fucking awful.

This morning I woke up and decided not to turn on NPR. I did, though, decide to look at the Electoral College vote. I expected the results to show that, like Trump’s first election in 2016, Trump had won the Electoral College vote while losing the popular vote.

But no. Trump won the popular vote. He actually got more votes than Kamala Harris. I just typed that sentence and it still doesn’t make any sense. How was it possible for Trump to get more votes than Harris? I mean, the guy ran the shittiest presidential campaign in US history. The guy was actually shouting about Haitians eating pets. He’d been convicted of 34 felonies, and found liable for sexual assault. How the fuck did that guy win?

This is how:

2020
Trump: 74 million votes
Biden: 81 million votes (the most votes ever cast for a presidential candidate in the US)

2024
Trump: 72 million votes
Harris: 68 million votes.

That’s how. Thirteen million people who’d voted for Joe Biden didn’t turn up. Thirteen million people just didn’t fucking vote. Thirteen million.

Why? I don’t know. I can’t be bothered to research their reasons. Before the election, I heard people complaining that Harris was campaigning with disaffected Republicans. Maybe some people stayed home because they didn’t like Liz Cheney. I heard people complaining Harris had flip-flopped on fracking. Maybe they didn’t vote because of environmental reasons. A lot of people, including me, were angry because she didn’t denounce the Palestinian genocide as vociferously as she should have. Maybe people sat out the vote as a protest. Maybe some people just didn’t want to vote for a Black woman. Maybe they decided to vote for Jill Fucking Stein or RFK. I heard people complaining about how Harris campaigned, that she didn’t do enough interviews, that she gave too many interviews to the wrong news outlets, that she ignored certain demographic groups. Maybe voters stayed home because they felt excluded. Or maybe some people saw all the enthusiasm for Harris on the news and decided she was going to win anyway so they felt they didn’t need to show up and vote.

The reasons really don’t matter. Not now. They didn’t fucking vote; that’s all that matters. They didn’t vote, and Donald Trump won. He got two million fewer votes than last time, and he still fucking won.

No, that’s not true. Not really. Trump didn’t win. Thirteen million voters gave it to him. Because of reasons.

The Palestinians? They’re more completely fucked now than before. Ukraine, absolutely fucked. Liz Cheney, fucked. The environment, fucked in so many ways you need an abacus to keep count. Trans people, fucked. Immigrants, fucked. People who look like they might be immigrants, fucked. Freedom of the Press, fucked. Reproductive rights, fucked. The list of people and causes that will be fucked over is long and deep. Things are going to get exceedingly ugly in the US. In the world. So very fucked.

Because thirteen million decided not to vote. They may never get the chance to vote again.

EDITORIAL NOTE: I’ve ended a lot of posts on this blog with a rant about the necessity to burn the patriarchy to the ground. I passionately believe that needs to be done. Patriarchy hurts everybody. I’m not going to include the rant today, because the American voters just invited the ugliest aspects of patriarchy to run the government and today I’m just too emotionally exhausted to shout. Tomorrow–or maybe next week, or next month–I’ll be less resigned. But today, the patriarchy has kicked my ass.