Resist or Retreat? Democratic Voters Are Torn About Whether to KeepFighting

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Resist or Retreat? Democratic Voters Are Torn About Whether to Keep Fighting.

Many who became activists during the first Trump administration are questioning if they can summon the strength to do it all over again

Kamala Harris’s supporters at an election night party on Tuesday at Howard University in Washington, D.C.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times

By Patricia Mazzei and Jenna Russell

Patricia Mazzei reported from Miami and Jenna Russell from Lewiston, Maine.

Nov. 6, 2024

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Cynthia Shaw worked at a polling place in the Detroit suburbs on Election Day and went to bed “still hopeful” that Vice President Kamala Harris could win, she said. By Wednesday morning, she was bereft, her head pounding.

“It feels so much more definitive this time,” Ms. Shaw, 65, said of Donald J. Trump’s victory.

After Mr. Trump won the presidency in 2016, many Americans who had opposed him became dedicated activists. They used Facebook to organize marches, joined protests against his policies and formed new organizations to recruit liberal candidates for office.

Now that Mr. Trump is president-elect once more, preparing to lead a still-divided country that voted more decisively in his favor this time, many of those same people are wondering if they can summon the strength to do it all — or even some of it — over again.

“So many of us are so exhausted,” said Ms. Shaw, a Democrat who has volunteered in every presidential election since 1992. “I don’t mean to be so bleak, but that’s how it feels today.”

In Arvada, Colo., Liz Folkestad, 43, allowed herself to stay in bed a little longer than usual on Wednesday morning, entertaining fantasies of escape.

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The Women’s March in Washington, D.C., in 2017. Credit...Hilary Swift for The New York Times

“There was definitely an hour when I Googled, ‘How to move me and two kids to Portugal,’” she said.

But she is not giving up. “My anger drives a fire,” she said, adding that moving forward, “I will engage. I’ll show up, I’ll march. There is solace in knowing that you’re not alone.”

Feelings were raw among many supporters of Ms. Harris — some because they had seen promise in her candidacy and hoped to elect the first female president, others because they wanted to deny Mr. Trump a second term.

Ken Turco, a real estate photographer in Asheville, N.C., stayed up until about 2 a.m. following the election results. After seeing Mr. Trump win, he deleted social media and news apps from his cellphone. On Wednesday morning, he said that he planned to retreat from civic life.

“I’m done,” said Mr. Turco, 57. “I’m just tired of it. Nothing ever changes in this country. There’s too many that feel differently than I do.”

Mr. Turco was so angry at Trump voters, he said, that he planned to stop volunteering in rural Republican-leaning counties outside Asheville that had been devastated by Hurricane Helene in September.

“I could care less what happens to them,” he said. “They voted for it; they’re going to get it. They’re going to get everything they asked for.”

For others, fear mixed with their disappointment. Saniyah Foster, 19, a college student in Phoenix, said the outcome had left her feeling exposed and at risk as a Black queer person in a conservative state.

“I was pretty much watching the election all night,” said Ms. Foster. “I couldn’t sleep, I was so anxious. I was shaking.”

“I’m just afraid that I won’t be able to live my life with someone that I love,” she added, choking up. “And I’m also afraid that I’m going to get hate-crimed because of my skin color. There’s no hiding that I’m Black.”

In Branchburg, N.J., Elizabeth Hyde, a history professor, was not sure how to answer when a friend with whom she had gone to the women’s march in Washington, D.C., after Mr. Trump’s inauguration in 2017 asked if she would do it again.

“I found myself saying, ‘I don’t know, because it might be too dangerous,’” said Ms. Hyde, 57. “And I think that speaks to the changes that we’ve experienced between 2016 and today.”

Manny Yekutiel, who runs a civic engagement space in San Francisco’s Mission District, held a street party on Tuesday night that was supposed to be a celebration of Ms. Harris, the city’s former district attorney. On Wednesday, he said Democrats need to not just protest Mr. Trump moving forward as they did eight years ago, but also to think deeply about the country’s problems.

“There is a feeling of greater exhaustion. We did this already,” Mr. Yekutiel said. “We need to take a deep look as Democrats, as liberals, as San Franciscans, at loneliness, economic uncertainty and fear. How do we diagnose those issues and solve them?”

Already, some had begun to move from grief to action.

Mary Beth Anton, a 61-year-old retired Presbyterian pastor in Midland, Texas, said she would “be much more intentional about looking out for the vulnerable in our community — refugees, the poor.”

Julie Williams, a 45-year-old fund-raising consultant in Hampton Falls, N.H., said she was thinking about how to help nonprofits that might be marginalized by the Trump administration.

Lucy Waite, a 36-year-old librarian in Buffalo, said she was contemplating pursuing more advocacy at the state level “because the federal level may be a lost cause for two years.”

Jennifer Jenkins, a school board member in Brevard County, Fla., founded an organization earlier this year to fight conservative influences in public education. Of the 26 school board candidates the group had supported in Florida and Michigan, 21 won.

“We can continue to fight,” Ms. Jenkins recalled telling family and friends who reached out to her on Wednesday. “Understand that we can continue to be successful.”

Not every Democrat wanted to hear that message so soon after Ms. Harris’s defeat. Thomas Shubilla, the party chairman in Luzerne County, Pa., where Mr. Trump won 60 percent of the vote, said that one member of the local Democratic committee had already announced he was changing his party registration to independent. Others had resigned.

“They no longer want to be involved in politics,” Mr. Shubilla said. “When you put your heart and soul into this — we did literally everything we could possibly do.”

Mr. Shubilla said that he, too, had mulled resigning. But he concluded that the Republican wave did not indicate a permanent political realignment.

“I had breakfast with my treasurer this morning,” he said, “and we’re already discussing a game plan.”

Reporting was contributed by Heather Knight in San Francisco; Christina Morales in Buncombe County, N.C.; Campbell Robertson in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.; and Kate Selig in Mesa, Ariz.

Patricia Mazzei is the lead reporter for The Times in Miami, covering Florida and Puerto Rico. More about Patricia Mazzei

Jenna Russell is the lead reporter covering New England for The Times. She is based near Boston. More about Jenna Russell