Like many women, I’m having a horrible flashback. It is 6 in the morning on November 9, 2016, the day after the United States presidential election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. I went to bed assuming Clinton had won.

I remember thinking to myself on the night of that election that there was nothing to worry about. Americans would do the right thing and vote for the most qualified person, not the reality TV star. I entered the dining room where my partner was sitting reading the news and I looked at him hopefully when he told me, still in shock: “Trump won.”

I was wrong eight years ago and I was wrong today about Vice President Kamala Harris’ chances of beating Trump.

I hoped the polls were wrong and the race wasn’t as close as it seemed in the swing states. I thought women would come out en masse to protect their reproductive rights. I expected and assumed that white women, in particular, would vote en masse for Harris. That was a false hope.

Trump has been declared the winner after comfortably winning several swing states. , something it failed to do in 2016. In fact, it has done better with almost every demographic in .

close race

It was a very close battle and, according to polls, .

In retrospect, several questions have been answered that were not so clear just a day ago. Will America vote for a black woman? No. Will Harris be able to do what Clinton couldn’t do eight years ago? No. Will it break the glass ceiling of the Oval Office? No.

The fact that these questions were still in play in 2024 seems telling about the misogyny and racism plaguing the United States.

Gender played a huge role in the election for several reasons. the overturn of across the United States, especially when the deaths of several women illustrated the consequences of these extreme anti-choice positions.

Concerns about women’s reproductive rights and Trump’s casual dismissal of sexualized violence apparently gave women, young and old, something to embrace.

A poll in Iowa by prestigious pollster Ann Selzer showed that women were 65 or older, although Trump ended up winning the state.

TikTok videos featuring the infamous Trump among young TikTokers who weren’t old enough to remember when the comments originally surfaced in 2016. They spoke of their amazement that their parents and anyone with daughters, sisters or mothers could vote for a person So.

But it wasn’t enough, even though they voted for Harris. , but not in the margins that his campaign expected.

Trump’s appeal to men

On the other side of the gender equation are men. as their apparent fears of being surpassed by women’s achievements in equality were exploited.

This is a worrying trend. According to a September NBC poll, . Research has shown that young women have become more liberal, perhaps because they are angry about being left behind and losing their previous advantages.

The candidates themselves acknowledged differences in support in their choice of podcasts and media appearances. Trump spent three hours with Joe Rogan, who subsequently endorsed him, for his podcast, while Harris continued, a podcast aimed at women under 35.

In the end, America voted for what is called “a cultural valorization of stereotypically masculine traits,” and Trump’s endlessly triumphant campaign.

The impact of white women

Another key factor in the campaign was race.

Exit polls suggested that non-college-educated white women, while college-educated white women voted for Harris.

Before the election, but suggestions that they supported Trump now appear unfounded. Exit polls suggest Harris didn’t do as well with .

We don’t have the final numbers yet in terms of how white women in swing states ultimately cast their votes, but they probably weren’t good. Democrats released videos, one narrated by actress Julia Roberts, pointing out the obvious constitutional guarantee that what happens at the ballot box must stay at the ballot box.

This was illuminating, suggesting that there are still many men who think and that it is a betrayal if they don’t, and perhaps Trump’s victory suggests that their wives agreed.

Evidently, the loss of reproductive freedom was not enough for white women to go against their race, their class interests (or possibly their husbands).

Black and Latino men

The other racial factor in the campaign was the perceived waning support for Harris among black and Latino men. Trump too.

And according to a New York Times survey, while Obama had the support of 93 percent of black Americans in 2008 and Biden had the support of 90 percent in 2020, .

Is this a result of sexism or internalized misogyny? Couldn’t black men decide to vote for a black woman?

That of Barack Obama.

After the 2016 election, the American Psychological Association coined anxiety around election results as .

That stress has returned as the world now watches what will happen when Trump, without guardrails, without checks and balances and with billionaires at his side, attempts to remake America in his own authoritarian image.

Republished with permission from The Conversation