We all have access to the news, so I need not recap what happened during the Nov. 5 election. Suffice it the front face for the Heritage Foundation, which is the front face for right-wing billionaires like Charles Koch and his club, was elected president. The Republican win was so deep it was and will be disabling for a while. It’s time to begin getting over the loss and move forward.

In a Nov. 20 article originally published in Hankyoreh, John Feffer provides a possible future as progressives pick up the pieces of our shattered dream of continuing the successes of the Biden administration with Kamala Harris. The entire article is printed here.

The challenge of navigating uncharted political waters is we don’t always know what to expect or what it might look like. Feffer provides some ideas toward envisioning the future as follows:

• In 2016, Trump himself was surprised by his own victory, and his team was ill-prepared to take power. In 2024, his team is ready to hit the ground running on day one.
• A demoralized Democratic Party is busy trying to figure out why it lost so badly in the elections.
• The next four years promise to be chaotic, vengeful, and dangerous.

What can be done to prevent the new administration from doing its worst?

At the global level, many countries will step into the vacuum created by U.S. withdrawal—from the Paris agreement, the effort to supply Ukraine, and various global human rights institutions. European powers will likely step up their assistance to Ukraine if the Trump administration ends all military support for the besieged country. Europe, too, will continue to take the lead in terms of a clean energy transition. China, Brazil, and India are also producing a growing amount of electricity from renewable sources.

Inside the United States, the greatest resistance will come from the states. These states controlled by Democrats—California, Washington, Massachusetts—are already preparing to work together to block Trump from executing his extremist agenda. This resistance will likely take the form of filing suits that tangle up the new administration in court.

States have authority to set policy. For instance, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s repeal of Roe v. Wade, a number of states preserved access to abortion services through court rulings, legislative policy, or popular referenda. Regarding mass deportations, some Democratic governors have already said that they will not allow state police to assist federal authorities with the removals. Democrat-led states will do their best to create islands of sanctuary against the overreach of federal authorities.

NGOs and social movements will also mount resistance. A women’s march in Washington, DC just after Trump’s inauguration in 2017 demonstrated the depth and breadth of anger at the new president’s attitudes and proposed policies toward women. A comparable march is planned for January 2025.

The resistance is organizing to push the Democratic Party toward economic populism. The goal is to highlight the economic costs of Trump’s early moves—mass deportations, tariffs, corporate tax cuts—to build momentum to win the 2026 midterm elections. As we crawl out of our cave, and the outrage at Trump’s actual policies explodes, new movements will emerge to mobilize public anger.

While I am as guilty as the next person in being shocked and angry about the choices of the U.S. electorate, it would be a mistake to accept the next four years as set in stone. When Trump’s policies begin to bite, the anger will return and, with it, a new determined resistance. I, for one, want to be a part of that.