Despair is not a strategy. Here are 4 things those mourning the election results can do right now.

Ruth Messinger
November 25, 2024

Three weeks after the disastrous election that will return Donald Trump to the White House, I am, first and foremost, grieving. Grieving the failure of the second female candidate of a major party to shatter the ultimate glass ceiling, grieving the continuing and ongoing series of threats to our democracy, grieving the inadequacy of our organizing efforts, grieving the vast chasms among our citizenry that so desperately need healing they are unlikely to receive in this administration.

Our Jewish traditions that guide us through the loss of loved ones can help us with this kind of grief as well. The ritual of shiva, the seven-day period of intense mourning after a funeral, is well known. When it ends, the mourners are meant to get up and walk around the block, a cathartic reentry into the world, into their new normal, accompanied by members of their community.

So instead of playing the blame game about what went wrong, we must get up and focus instead on where we go from here.

First, in the spirit of this week’s holiday of Thanksgiving, we can start with some gratitude. 

We held a free and fair election, without evident scandal or corruption. Boards of elections, poll workers, and various state and local bodies did their jobs. There was open debate, and there will soon be a peaceful and lawful transition of power. 

This is not something that we should take for granted, in a world full of despots and coups. It is something that should be treasured and defended.

The result of the election is terrifying to me. Trump made clear in the campaign and has confirmed through his appalling cabinet appointments that he is determined to reshape our world through his own brand of racism, misogyny, homophobia and xenophobia. He intends to target and tear apart immigrant communities and is committed to launching mass deportations.  He continues to profess a denial of the climate crisis. He will attack Jews, Muslims, trans people and protesters of all kinds.

Despite our best field outreach and organizing efforts, his party will control both houses of Congress, and he will expand the conservative majority on our Supreme Court, leaving little hope for the checks and balances the Constitution is supposed to provide against the abuse of power.

There is plenty to mourn, but after the grieving must come strategic thinking that leads to action. And as I first said in a synagogue speech after Trump’s first victory in 2016, “despair is not a strategy.”

People in the most vulnerable situations in our society and around the world cannot afford for us to wallow in despair, and the teachings of our tradition won’t let us do that either.

So here are four first steps that can start to shape a path forward:

• Drill down on a single issue. Whatever moves you most: trans rights, the environment, Israel. Get focused, and get involved. And don’t go out and create a new nonprofit to address your cause. Find the right group and be ready to work with others on the issue you’re passionate about wherever and however it arises. Be an ambassador, an educator and a lobbyist for the issue.

• Focus on the midterms. We cannot afford to wait until the 2028 presidential cycle to turn the tide. The entire House and a third of the Senate will be on the ballot in 2026, and history suggests the opposition party will have major opportunities to flip seats. Find a candidate you care about and start giving and canvassing. There are even elections in 2025: the Wisconsin Supreme Court, for example, and open seats for governor in both Virginia and New Jersey. Each and every ballot in this divided country is essential.

• Invest in education for a democracy. One lesson from this campaign is the curse of misinformation and disinformation in a fractured, filter-bubbled media landscape. We have endless new ways of communicating, and we must ensure that reliable, trustworthy, fact-based content reaches broad audiences. Support nonprofit and local journalism, invest in the teaching of civics and media literacy, share reliable information on candidates and issues across social media and other channels.

• Engage in/with the resistance. Maybe you are not the type or no longer in the mood to march on Washington. Fine. But when Trump follows through on his promise of mass deportation — when he deploys the National Guard to remove the newest New Yorkers from the hotels where they have been sheltering, or to empty the synagogues and churches and mosques that have provided sanctuary — we will each have to decide whether to stand in the way or stand silently and watch. Think now about how much you are willing to risk, how much you would sacrifice, for the lives and rights of people more vulnerable than you are.

It may sound daunting. It may feel easier to stay in mourning; it may seem too hard to walk around the block. But we have faced crises before and survived, both as Jews and as Americans.

As Jews, we know that for millennia our ancestors lived under governments that ranged from friendly to hostile, welcoming to brutal. We have not only learned how to survive, but developed the tools to thrive, to be there for each other’s safety, and to experience the joys of life under any circumstance.  We know that our responsibility to continue to work for justice is central to our tradition.

So get up we must. If your steps are unsteady, be guided by the teaching of the Chinese philosopher Lu Xun. “Hope is like a path in the countryside,” he wrote more than a century ago. “Originally, there was no path, yet as people walked all the time in the same direction, a way appeared.”

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