In both my head and my heart, I knew that Donald Trump and MAGA were going to defeat Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democrats. For the last few years, I have desperately tried to warn the public of this growing reality. I am not a “doomsayer” or “alarmist.” I am a realist committed to democracy and the hard work it takes to protect it. Black Americans, as a people, deeply understand and carry this history and lived experience and the knowledge and burden of democracy as contingent and imperiled in our collective bodies, psyches, and memories. For us, America has only been a democracy for sixty years. As I often remind myself, there are white people alive right now who personally watched (and participated in) the lynchings of Black people during the Jim and Jane Crow terror regime. Unfortunately, too few Americans listened.

The Age of Trump and his elevation back to the White House reflect a deep nihilism and despair.

Even worse, as seen last Tuesday, there are tens of millions of Americans, who want what Trump and his fascist MAGA movement are offering. A week later, the words do not exist yet to accurately describe such a national and global tragedy.

I was not going to watch the election results on Tuesday. My plan was to go somewhere far away from the television or any screen. I planned to read about the election that night or the next day. I relented. For reasons of “history” and professional responsibility, I decided to turn on the TV to confirm my worries in real time. I knew that this version of the United States of America was not going to elect a supremely qualified Black woman even if the alternative is an aspiring dictator who is a White man. And there it was, the creeping inevitability that became a torrent. The hosts and guests on the cable news networks — two in particular — looked sickened as 2016 repeated itself and they tried to convince themselves and the viewers that matters could not possibly be so dire and that somehow Harris was going to find a way to win.

Related

At 9 pm I turned off the cable news programs and decided there was no need to watch the American people doom themselves in real time. I put on my old Army trench coat and boots and, as I have on many days, and especially in these monumental moments, I made my pilgrimage to Trump Tower in downtown Chicago. I would sit there and think and try to find some peace as I talked to myself and looked up at that horrible building. I asked several of my friends who are psychologists about my ritual. Is it healthy? They told me that my trips to Trump Tower are a reasonable and positive response to extreme danger and stress because, unlike others, I am making Trump and Trumpism........

© Salon