What follows is a collection of voices from The Headlight staff in response to the 2024 election results. Since it is a collection of voices, the writer will be identified each time the narration switches at the beginning of the paragraph. We hope this collection of opinions allows you to process the reality of the future and reminds you to connect with those close to you.
(Maggie) I’m a 16-year-old girl scared for my rights after the 2024 election. Donald Trump is America’s 47th president. I’m worried. I’m angry. But mostly, I’m disappointed.
(Shayla) As a 16-year-old African-American woman in the United States, fearing my rights on my body and seeing politicians continue to degrade my racial identity is a feeling I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Not knowing how my family or even my children will grow up is something beyond terrifying.
(Tobias) A general sense of dread has set in slowly after the election. More specifically the fact that Trump won. It’s unbelievable that people voted for someone whose policies are the personification of hate and trying to separate us as Americans, making a more divided country that’s already so polarized.
(Maggie) As a country, we have decided that a convicted felon and sexual abuser is a better option than a woman who has experience in multiple branches of government and was proud to be the face of change. We have decided that a man who objectifies women daily, who disapproves of gay marriage, who calls for mass deportations, who claims climate change is a hoax, whose entire campaign relies on threats and fear, is a better option than another overly qualified candidate just because she is a woman.
There are no words to describe the disgust I feel when I think about who will run my country. I’m not a patriotic person, but this election makes me genuinely embarrassed to be American.
(Shayla) I am disgusted to call this place my home, and embarrassed to see fellow women worship the former president when he couldn’t care less about them or their bodies.
Fear is taking over women around the United States. Research shows that IUD insertions have increased 21.6% since Trump’s election compared to the previous month. This isn’t new. In the 2016 election, there was a significant increase in interest in long-acting contraceptives. We shouldn’t have to settle, we need full range over ourselves and decisions should always fall into our hands. Personal freedom over pregnancy isn’t situational and isn’t a want. It’s a need and is necessary. Not only is it healthcare, it determines our future.
(Maggie) Roe v. Wade has been overturned for two years; the decision still feels fresh in my mind, and now, proposals are circling that genuinely make me sick. Calls to eliminate Plan B, to get rid of the birth control pill and to make it illegal to perform abortions even in life-threatening situations.
(Shayla) Overturning Roe v. Wade doesn’t stop abortions. It stops safe ones. We need to acknowledge it isn’t about values, it’s about women’s safety everywhere. Women’s rights to their bodies are in the hands of politicians, and we continue to fight to keep what should always have been ours: our bodies.
(Maggie) There are no words to describe the helplessness I felt being unable to vote to protect my freedoms this election, freedoms that Donald Trump is openly trying to take away. I’ve never felt as powerless as I do today.
(Shayla) We fight so hard to keep the progress we’ve come so far to earn when we shouldn’t have had to fight in the first place.
(Tobias) One of the other main things that worries me is that Trump’s presidency is during some of the most important years for minimizing climate change, despite being so sure that climate change is just a “hoax” made by the “Chinese government” as he’s tweeted out in the past.
By 2030, one year after Trump is out of office, the U.S. needs to halve its carbon emissions so the global temperature average does not lurch above 1.5°C (the pre-industrial time average), which would cause intense damage to our planet.
Brookings, a nonprofit nonpartisan group that researched Trump’s last term, found 74 separate actions by Trump to weaken climate change policies, making it almost guaranteed that Trump will do damage to our planet in his four years that will affect us as a population long into the future. A great example of this devastation is Hurricane Helene, which is only a teaser to what could happen if Trump stays strong on his opinions and past policies on climate change.
Not only does he not believe the “hoax” of climate change, but he also wants to drill as much oil as possible. It’s almost like he’s trying to find the fastest way to destroy our planet as the president of the U.S. He has been vocal about his desire for more offshore drilling and, in the past, has even mentioned drilling in national parks. He would sell public government land to the highest bidder to do whatever they wanted there, such as drill, mine or anything of the sort.
Biden is very aware of what Trump could do to the world with his past policies. In his last few weeks as president, Biden is trying to minimize the possible damage that Trump can do. He recently started to try to protect Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, one of the places that Trump was trying to sell in the past, showing the lasting damage just one bad decision can have years and years after it was made.
(Maggie) Nov. 6, 2024, will be a day I remember for the rest of my life. The first thing I did when I woke up was check the results, and I felt like a hole had opened inside me when I saw who had won.
I am worried about myself. I’m worried about my country. I’m worried for the children, teenagers, adults, and elderly who will be severely impacted by Project 2025 and an entirely conservative government. For women, people of color, and members of the LGBTQ+ community.
(Tobias) By the end of Trump’s presidency, there’s a high likelihood that Trump will cause damage to our whole planet by his inaction on climate change. His increase in drilling and trying to pawn off federal land to people who want to buy it just to destroy it for some extra resources to pad their pockets will greatly harm the planet in the process.
(Maggie) And I’m worried about our president-elect becoming an example for people across the country, an example showing that you can lie, cheat, demonize and harass people, be convicted for it, and still have the highest status possible. Think about that. It’s illegal for convicted felons to vote, but one can become the president.
But I’m also grateful for the hope Kamala Harris gave so many people. It is truly something, that a woman of color, who wasn’t born rich, made it to the presidential election — and had a shot.
America wasn’t ready for Kamala Harris, and that’s something I have to accept. The next few years will be hard, but I hope we can recognize the need for change and finally be able to act on it. I hope that with Trump no longer being eligible to run for office again, we have a fighting chance with less polarizing candidates, and I severely hope the damage inflicted by this election, and what is to come, will be reversible.
