The 2024 Election Was An Unambiguous Win for One Demographic: Sex Predators

Finally reckoning with this moment.

At the risk of becoming fodder for very online conservatives to mock for sharing my feelings about the election, I’ll admit that, yes, I cried on election night. I cried the next morning, too. And more than once since then.

Despite my devastation, there was never a chance I would be celebrating the outcome of this election. I was pleased to have (for what I imagine will be the last time for a long time) a decent and moral Libertarian candidate to cast my vote for. Chase Oliver never had a chance at winning in our political system, but at least I could put my support behind someone who wasn’t promising to continue using our tax dollars to aid and abet genocide.

But alas, even knowing there was no good outcome, I wasn’t prepared for how paralyzing Donald Trump’s reelection was for me. After I turned off election coverage—before the result was official but once it was inevitable—I felt the stomach turmoil of a freefall. I hugged my pillow and, though knowing it was a silly thing to request, asked my partner to tell me that things were going to be okay.

Grieving Their Future

Truthfully, I knew that, most likely, everything would be okay—for me. My tears weren’t for my own well-being (though I will be negatively affected by Trump’s economically illiterate trade policies, blatant corruption, and destabilizing foreign policy, as most other Americans will); it was the grief I could feel from so many who could not say that everything would be okay. My heart felt like it was trying to escape my chest in search of my trans neighbors, my undocumented neighbors, my Palestinian neighbors—to do what I was always taught to do: love my neighbors.

Amidst the grief, I couldn’t miss that many people were celebrating. Some people I know. Some people I love.

Celebrating a proud womanizer, who has been found civilly liable for sexual assault and defamation, who has been accused of sexual assault by at least 24 women, who was one of Jeffrey Epstein’s closest friends for ten years (and who knew Epstein liked women “on the younger side”); a man who shows every day that he cares about nothing other than enriching himself even if through scams, fraud, or exploitation—being given, once again, the most powerful position on Earth.

Men with massive platforms celebrated what they clearly saw as a win for misogynists by taunting women with jeers of “your body—my choice,” which catalyzed young men who said the same thing to their female classmates across the nation. Others mocked those who didn’t vote for Trump, saying, of course, they lied; the plan is to use the next four years to reverse the last 100 by no longer recognizing the rights of women, gay people, trans people, and immigrants. Celebration. Joy. Glee at the hurt and harm that would come to so many.

Questioning My Future

Soon my grief turned inward, and I found myself despairing anew.

Most of my friends know I want to be a mom. I’ve wanted to be a mom for a long time. More than any other hopes or dreams, I have longed to have a child, and 2025 is the year that dream could come to fruition. And yet, I found myself profoundly questioning that desire for the first time.

Though I do live in a pretty purple state, it is also one that has an effective ban on abortion healthcare that has already caused (at least) two preventable deaths. I also have a medical condition that increases my risk of ectopic pregnancies as well as other dangerous pregnancy complications like preeclampsia.

As this restriction already existed, my concern perhaps should have also existed before election day. But for the first time when I considered being pregnant in the near future, it was fear and not joy that filled my heart. Will I have access to the care I need should I be faced with a devastating diagnosis?

(I can’t help but smirk at the irony that the same people who fear-monger about a declining population and who would vote to end no-fault divorce and ban birth control so that women have to have babies no matter what are the very people making me question my desire to have kids at all.)

That fear focused next on the future of any children I may have. A phrase I used to roll my eyes at suddenly welled up in my own throat: do I really want to bring a child into this?

From a human flourishing standpoint, I know that now is the best time to be alive (and whenever I start to forget this, I visit humanprogress.org to revive my hope). But in those days after the election, it wasn’t human life expectancy or poverty rates making me worry; it was the thought of bringing a new, vulnerable life into a society with millions of people supporting such vileness and violence. Supporting “ugly” and “bloody” deportations. Supporting children being harassed and tormented for having a different gender identity than their born sex. Supporting the annihilation of Palestinians, be they Muslim or Christian, grown man or infant. All for the promise of cheaper groceries that will be impossible if Trump’s economic strategies are pursued.

One in Six

I continued interrogating this fear and soul sickness for a few days (and in a few hours of therapy). I finally got to the root of it as Trump’s cabinet picks started to roll out.

Matt Gaetz. RFK Jr. Pete Hegseth.

With each new pick, more people started to stumble over the same joke (that was not much of a joke after all): Is it a requirement that a member of Trump’s cabinet must have a history of sexual abuse or allegations?

It is common knowledge in D.C. that Matt Gaetz is a sexual predator. It became so undeniable that the House Ethics Committee—in a majority-Republican House—spent months investigating the allegations against him. This included the testimony of a woman who said Gaetz had sex with her when she was only 17, and another woman who witness the alleged assault.

But when Trump nominated him TO LEAD THE GODDAM JUSTICE DEPARTMENT, Speaker Mike Johnson and the rest of the good-ole Baptist boys in Congress pressured the committee to bury the report they were set to publish.

Despite all this, Gaetz’s reputation was too well known. His nomination collapsed, and just today the ethics report was released (and it’s as disgusting and abusive as everyone anticipated).

RFK Jr. is a serial adulterer, a fact understood to have led to one of his ex-wives dying by suicide. This is not new information. He collects women. He has kept diaries of his exploitations, has had allegations of assault for decades, and when pressed on it, defends himself by saying he never claimed to be a church boy.

Pete Hegseth (who doesn’t wash his hands) was named in my speed round of Fox News personalities who do not practice the sexual ethic that they preach. He impregnated a coworker while he was still married to one of his former wives, and his own mother said that he is an abuser of women.

After each nomination, there followed a chorus of men—many professed Christians as that is still an important virtue signal in Conservative political circles—defending these alleged predators. And finally, I finally understood the dread living inside my body.

According to the Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network, 1 in 6 American women has been the victim of attempted or completed rape in her lifetime. For so many of us, that is more than a statistic. It’s a memory. Our worst memories.

We remember being assaulted. We remember every time. We remember the way we wanted to stop existing to escape the reality we woke up in every day. We remember how long it took to come to terms with what happened.

We remember finally being able to move forward—one excruciating step at a time. We remember walking up to the police station. We remember sitting in a cold, hard chair under a blue fluorescent light as we told a stranger in a uniform things we had never said out loud to anyone. We remember waiting, wondering if anything would ever come of that effort. We remember the phone call saying there was nothing more they could do. Would do.

We remember the people we confided in. We remember the ones who loved us and cried with us. We also remember the ones who acted like it wasn’t a big deal. We remember the people who didn’t believe us. We remember the people who called us liars. We remember the ones who defended our abuser.

And for many of us, the last six weeks has set off our PTSD all over again. We’ve watched predators get promoted to the cheers of millions. These men may not be our abusers, but they represent the powerful and the unaccountable in every part of society. It feels like millions of people telling you, “we don’t believe you, and even if we did, we wouldn’t care.”

Now What?

This has taken me a long time to write, and it was not particularly pleasant. But the time was also spent stabilizing, regulating, and preparing for what comes next. For me, what comes next is a chapter of life I have waited for for so long. I find myself blessed with an abundance of beauty in my life. I couldn’t have dreamed up a better partner to go through the distress and the delight of life with (and I dreamed for a really long time). He’s my friend, my confidant, my encourager, my love. He is helping to heal the wounds he did not inflict, and I’m grateful for every day spent with him.

We have a new home (so new that we will be spending Christmas break time on more unpacking and settling). I have exciting opportunities waiting for me in 2025, and I am eager to get to them.

My heart is still burdened. But I know so many other hearts are hurting so much more. There is no shortage of people that the powerful intend to harm. That means people like me don’t get to cry and never move on. We can cry. And then we get back up. Our neighbors need love and friendship. Fellow victims need community and healing.

Those of us whose hearts ached for the least of these on election night will have plenty to do over the next four years.