WASHINGTON D.C. — I woke up on Election Day wearing fuzzy feline headgear. My brown tabby, Joey, had wrapped his paws around my head and was purring in my ear as I remembered my plan to go to Washington D.C. to attend the watch party at Howard University for Vice President Kamala Harris. But with a cat draped across my skull, my mind drifted to a previous trip I'd made to D.C. in January 2017, when I covered the Women's March to protest the inauguration of Donald Trump. That day had been the one bright spot amid the years of MAGA hell, witnessing hundreds of thousands of people streaming in every direction, vowing to resist the fascist urges of a man who had bragged about sexually assaulting women. The symbol of the day: the ubiquitous p***y hats, cheerful pink knitted confections worn by women reclaiming control over a body part that Trump memorably boasted about grabbing against his victims' wills.
It looks now like my sweet cat was an ominous omen. With Trump's win, it's time for women to dig those hats out of storage, grab their "resistance" wine glasses, and get back to work. Trump's victory came at the hands of a majority of male voters, while most women once again turned out hoping to stop him. It will be up to women, again, to save America from this glowering fascist menace.
In 2017, the pink cat ears atop the Women's Marchers were often accompanied by signs adorned with angry cats declaring "p***y grabs back." Eight long years later, the common housecat continued to symbolize female resistance. Trump's running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, complained extensively of "cat ladies," a favorite MAGA insult for independent women. However, women, including pop star Taylor Swift, wore the term like a badge of honor, pointing out, correctly, that thinking for yourself is a point of pride.
Spirits were high at Howard around 9 p.m. as the event filled up. Students decked out in university gear or their Greek letters crowded in. As hip-hop blared over the speakers, groups of women gleefully line-danced to Ciara and Missy Elliot tunes under giant American flags. By 10, the mood was flagging, as it became clear that, once again, American voters were showing themselves unable to make the correct and obvious choice between a good-hearted, competent woman and a screaming, hateful fascist. I snuck out demoralized at 11 p.m. and woke to find the worst had happened.
But even as it dawned on people that Trump could, once again, win this thing, it didn't feel quite as soul-crushing as it did in 2016. Perhaps it is because we are no longer surprised that so many of our fellow Americans harbor so much spite that they would rather burn down this country than share its bounty with others who helped build it. But part of it is that this crowd knows what they couldn't have eight years ago: They can pick up and keep fighting. We know that even when most men fail this country, most women square their shoulders and fight. In November 2016, we hadn't seen the Women's March. We hadn't witnessed the #MeToo movement. We haven't seen how women would rise up against abortion bans, forcing multiple states to protect the right even as Republican leadership tries to outlaw it.
Some of the richest men in the world, such as Elon Musk and Rupert Murdoch, dumped billions of dollars into drowning Americans in far-right propaganda. The internet is awash in mind-melting conspiracy theories and people barely pay attention to real news anymore. The forces of basic decency are truly a David facing a Goliath. And yet, because women continue to turn out for the Democrats, they fought this election to a near draw. That is a sign of true strength. The MAGA movement has resorted to a tsunami of lies and distractions and even violence to win, because they never could compete in a fair fight.
As Harris herself said when she first announced her run for president, "I know Donald Trump's type." With a massive propaganda apparatus built on lies and the intrinsic unfairness of the Electoral College, the MAGA movement has carved out more power than they have earned through popular will. The thumb has long been on the scale for rapists, misogynists and bigots. But the crowd at Howard on Tuesday night was a reminder that the MAGA movement will not win so easily. The culture is shifting toward the people there that night: young, diverse and heavily female. They will not crawl back to the kitchen just because some bitter weirdos call them "cat ladies" on Twitter. They will keep on living.
Harris very deliberately downplayed both her gender and racial identity this campaign, in sharp contrast to Hillary Clinton's 2016 run, centered around soaring rhetoric about the candidate breaking the final glass ceiling. But somehow it still turned into what some pundits called a "boys vs. girls" election, in no small part because polls predicted the largest gender gap ever in a presidential election. In truth, it was more of a "boys vs. adults" election. Despite Vance's grumbling about "childless cat ladies," the Harris campaign brought strong mom energy: cheerful but determined. Both male and female supporters embodied the vibe of any adult woman who smiles as she checks off her lengthy to-do list, busy but grateful to have such a full life.
Despite the advanced age of the candidate, the Trump campaign was characterized by petulance and immaturity, adopting the countenance of a spoiled rich kid sneering at his mom for telling him to do his homework. The premise undergirding the campaign was that lazy, childish men should be the leaders of society, not just despite but because they won't do the work to earn it. Men like Elon Musk, RFK Jr. and Joe Rogan wore their ignorance like a badge of honor, scorning those who put in years of effort to become experts, rather than just lazily spouting off conspiracy theories. The Proud Boys, whose name hat-tips their arrested development, re-emerged to threaten poll workers with violence. Trump and Vance spent the last days on the campaign trail awash in schoolyard sexism, calling female leaders "trash" and the b-word, while fantasizing openly about sending a convicted rapist after Harris.
Even the field operations of the two campaigns reflected this divergence. The Harris campaign tackled get-out-the-vote operations with the diligence of a straight-A student who always has her hand in the air, knocking over 800,000 doors in Pennsylvania on Saturday. Musk handled the ground game for Trump, resulting in an anemic canvassing presence. Instead, in the tradition of lazy frat daddies paying someone else to take tests for them, Musk purchased Trump voters with a $1 million-a-day lottery. This contrast has an unmistakably gendered flavor to it, as girls everywhere know they have to study hard and show up to get ahead, while rich white boys all too often coast on privilege.
Even the locations of the candidates on Election Day highlighted the difference. Harris set up camp at her alma mater, showcasing not just her personal industriousness, but the historical determination Black people have put into education and labor in a country that has often worked against their aspirations. Trump kicked back at a country club he bought with inherited wealth. And yet, there is no doubt that Howard was the more fun place to be, simply because the people were more pleasant to be around. Even in the face of a crushing defeat, the Harris supporters who turned out knew it was not due to any lack of effort on their part. It's only because the nation is too sexist and racist still to deserve the sweat this crowd — racially diverse and majority female — put into the fight. And will continue to put into it. They have no other choice. Their lives and their freedoms depend on it.
Trump has done real damage to the American psyche, especially when it comes to his supporters, who have become angrier, more paranoid and more sadistic over the past nine years. Even in defeat, we must be grateful to Harris for a tremendous job embodying a different vision: One in which Americans can be kind, cooperative, and, yes, joyful. Even sticking with the journalistic practice of holding a campaign at arm's length, it's been a relief to attend Harris events, such as the rally at Temple University in August or the Democratic National Convention. It honestly has less to do with the candidates, and more to do with the people on the ground, who are funny, gentle, smart and, well, just plain normal, instead of bristling with the weird and hateful energy that Trump breeds in his followers. Despite the fear that is now settling over the country again, there's strength in seeing all these reasonable people come together, men and women both, who believe that women deserve better. That we all deserve better.
The women who voted for Harris aren't giving up. Vance and Musk and their army of Twitter trolls can fling the term "cat lady" around as much as they want, but voting for Trump will not make women en masse give up their jobs to play at being a "tradwife." Trump can and likely will usher in more restrictions on abortion and even contraception, but women have already shown they will respond with networks of mutual aid to smuggle care to those who need it. MAGA men keep telling a story where, if they hate and punish women enough, women will just lie down and take it. They're just making women angrier and more determined. Women understand they cannot depend on men's goodness to protect us. American women know: The only people who will save us are us.
