‘Twas the night before the election, and all through the nation all eyes were locked on a screen in anticipation. Officers assembled along the streets and atop the roofs in preparation, in the fear that unrest would soon be here, while echoes of January 6th still drummed in their ears.
After the tumultuous election year of 2020 and the following months after Donald Trump’s loss, Americans in every state expected the 2024 election aftermath to be similar.
“I mean, I bet there’ll be people who are upset one way or another, whether it’s Kamala or it’s Donald that gets elected. But I think realistically, like anything in life, there’s going to be disappointment,” predicted Officer Dan, Summit’s Resource Officer.
Local governments and police forces across the nation prepared for the worst, but what accompanied the election results was a unique quiet that few had expected.
In 2020, after close results declared Joe Biden the winner, Trump began down a long road of baseless voting fraud claims. He claimed that there were more votes cast than registered voters in battleground states and that there were unexplained surges in Democratic votes. Voting machines were owned by Democrats, he said, and thousands of dead people had voted.
Various news and polling sites disproved these claims, but that didn’t stop a mob of Trump’s supporters to rally in anger against the “rigged election.” Fueled by Trump’s fraud claims and his speech at a rally where he said, “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” thousands stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. This event, marking the first of its kind in American history, sparked widespread fear which carried into the 2024 election year.
As the 2024 presidential election neared, Trump’s accusations of voting fraud again reared their ugly heads. In an interview with the conservative radio host Wayne Allyn Root, Trump complained “We have a rigged election. We have bad borders, we have very bad elections.” While these claims are false, through his words he has brainwashed countless Americans, and gained a cult-like following that seems prone to violence. He gives his supporters something to blame–voter fraud–and liberal voters something to fear–another Jan. 6–if he loses. And so the nation prepared for another post-election uproar.
But the chaos never came.
Trump won the 2024 presidential election, and all of a sudden there was no blame. There were no angry accusations, no wildly false claims for conservatives to go along with. It was a time of celebration for right-wing voters, and magically his accusations of fraud had evaporated.
But why haven’t Democrats risen up in an angry frenzy? If Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in 2021 because their candidate lost, why aren’t Harris supporters doing the same thing now?
Well, for one, we have yet to reach the day when this year’s election results are ratified by Congress, January 6th, 2025, so we don’t actually know what will happen. But due to the lack of violence we have seen so far, we can reasonably assume that Democrats won’t storm the Capitol in the coming months.
The quiet that has ensued this year’s election is not because Democrats aren’t angry. Any party would be furious to see their candidate lose, especially with political tensions in our nation being so high. But left-wing voters aren’t fueled by the same destructive energy that Trump voters were previously charged by.
Harris never attempted to spark doubt in citizens about our country’s voting system; she never gave her followers something to hate, something to blame if she lost. She peacefully gave her concession speech the morning after the election, and within it she stated, “A fundamental principle of American democracy is that when we lose an election, we accept the results.” Harris made it clear that she trusted our nation’s democracy, and that she herself accepted the election results.
Sure, liberal voters were enraged when Harris lost. But they weren’t savage. Kamala Harris stood strong as a leader, and she lost with dignity. She showed the nation that a path forward meant standing by the truth, even if it followed a disappointing loss. And in the wake of her leadership our nation has remained civil.
Embedded in her acceptance of the results, was a clear jab at Trump’s refusal of the results years prior. She sets up a clear contrast between her presence as a leader vs. Trump. Trump leads with fear, blatantly attacking the foundation of Americans electoral system when it doesn’t go his way and remaining eerily silent when it does. His denial and ability to spin webs of lies that thousands of Americans fall victim to is a clear sign that the future of the nation is in bad hands.
American politics have long been escalating. Divides between the red and blue parties have increased to chasms. For a while now we have been at a tipping point. In 2020, Trump took advantage of these tensions and charged Americans with fear. His campaign tested the nation’s tipping point.
Trump’s irrational spitfire has gained too much power over the past eight years and his cult-like followers have used them to defend both their’s and his actions. His influence is getting out of control. Harris, however, has led with honesty, integrity and bravery. She has never encouraged violence.
The division is clear. We have strayed as a nation from a path of hope to a path of fear.
So America, have we made the right choice?
