Right now, the pain and shock is still fresh. It is a dangerous time.

Often, humans lash out during times of trauma, even at those who love us. It is a great temptation that is difficult to fight, gotta hit that anger pipe by taking it out on our friends. The problem is, that does not get us anywhere but Dividetown.

Finger-pointing right now is mostly based on personal feelings and the urge to hurt others within the coalition that you might not always agree with. Progressives think Kamala Harris wasn’t to the left enough or was too easy on Israel. Centrists think Harris’s progressive policies were a turnoff to independents. The thing is, it is too early to make such assumptions. If you are basing them on exit polls, please know that in 2016, people made a lot of exit polls that showed that more than half of all white women voted for Trump in 2016, choosing him over Hillary Clinton by a wide margin. However, further analysis by Pew Research was released in 2018 that showed it was much closer and a majority of white women did not vote for Trump and his lead in the category was much tighter, 47-45 Trump. So, those hot takes immediately after 2016’s election were likely based on bad information.

This post on TwitterX captures it perfectly.

So, right now any theory might be based on something that’s not really proven, or nothing more than ego. And as I said, it’s a dangerous time. Emotions are on tilt. People are not going to react well to finger-pointing.

We need to be united and stay together right now. Kelly Hayes, a Native American writer and activist, wrote a nice post yesterday morning about the importance of not fracturing in the face of what is coming.

People need time to recover from the shock, to process the trauma, to steel themselves for what is to come. Trump made a lot of threats, talked about crazy policy ideas like tariffs, and make no mistake, they are going to try to carry out as much of Project 2025 as they can. We are likely to have some dark moments in our future.

As hard as it is to imagine right now when the pain is so fresh, we can bounce back. We have to believe we can so we can take action. They are counting on us giving up, squabbling, and wallowing in despair.

This is not to say it’s not okay to be angry. Your anger is true, and real. Just over 50% of all Americans looked at the ugliest political animal in our history and said “yeah, I’ll vote for that.” But instead of lashing out at some pundit on TwitterX, or getting into a sniping fest on Facebook, channel that anger to something positive. A good guide to using anger is this one, written yesterday by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, a liberal rabbi who is a very wise and wonderful person that I recommend reading.

I’ll end by saying two things: be kind, including to each other and to yourself. And do not give up. That means supporting one another and not giving up on the hope that politics can give us. The midterms are in two years, after all.

The last word goes to Canned Heat: