Today's DRH - Donald Trump Wins the 2024 US Election
It IS a disability-related event, because it directly affects the lives of 70 million disabled Americans
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Back to today’s Disability History Roundup…this actually happened early on Nov. 6, and we won’t know the final numbers for a while. As I’m writing this, Donald Trump won the Electoral College with 301 seats to Kamala Harris’ 226, and the Republicans have a majority in the Senate; the House of Representatives has not been called yet.
Image Description: An “I Voted” with an American flag on it circle against a navy background.
I am a Canadian living in Canada, so it’s hard to know what to say about Donald Trump’s victory. A quick glance at my Facebook feed shows that my fear and disappointment is miniscule compared to what my friends and loved ones in the US are feeling, especially the ones who have been working almost non-stop over the past few weeks to get people to vote for Kamala Harris. Thank you, my friends, for your hard work!
I wish I could say that it’s going to be okay, but I don’t think that it will be for a lot of people. We (and I don’t just mean Americans - other countries are going to have to contribute, too, and I know a lot of Canadians want to help, so let us know what you need) will have to work hard to help as many people keep as many of their rights as possible. We’re at the start of a long journey, friends - the next four years are a potential nightmare especially for marginalized groups in America including woman, queer people, trans people, immigrants (documented and undocumented), people of colour, and non-Christians. That’s by no means a full list.
I didn’t include disabled people, because no one’s been talking about them.
Let’s do that right now.
No Plan for Disability
The disability community has been talking about the election since it was called, the way it talks about all the US elections, because disabled Americans know that they’re a powerful voting block. According to the CDC, there were 70 million disabled adults in America in 2022, making up 28.7% of the population. And where there are disabled people, there are loved ones who want to vote for the candidate who best represents the interests of the disabled person in their life, and people that work in the disabilities field, so that number of potential voters rises. It’s a voting block ignored at any candidate’s peril, and yet it is.
I was watching the 2016 election pretty closely, and I heard no specifics in the run-up to Election Day of Donald Trump’s plan for disabled people (beyond mocking a disabled journalist at a rally.) Whatever the plan was, it wasn’t extensive or progressive. He did sign the VA Choice and Quality Improvement Act of 2017, which extended the Veteran’s Care program to let veterans use private health insurance, reducing wait times and travel distances for them to access care. However, he also proposed:
Increasing the frequency of disability reviews for Social Security recipients, potentially causing disabled recipients to lose benefits.
Cutting costs by making significant cuts to Medicaid and other social programs that provide services for disabled people.
This time? Again, all I know about Donald Trump and disabilities is that he’s used some ableist language at rallies. On this, there doesn’t even seem to be “concepts of a plan.”
Not that the Harris campaign was any more forthcoming - surprising, given that her VP pick Tim Waltz has an autistic son. The advocacy group “Disabled Folks for Kamala” told Newsday that an Oct 8 Harris virtual campaign event arranged for disabled voters “did not meet the basic access requirements”.
And this USA Today Article describes a disabled woman’s struggle to get a response from the Harris campaign re: her platform on disabilities, pointing out that they tried to get a comment from both campaigns on the article and were unable to. There was a lot of talk from Harris about making America a better place for everyone who lives there, but very little about how she planned to make that happen for people with disabilities.
Disability advocacy groups also had trouble making contact with both campaigns.
But it’s not surprising. Disabled people and their issues aren’t a priority for the policiticians or the media covering them. On the morning of Nov. 6, I watched a panel of otherwise diverse pundits talk on CNN talk about the potential dangers of Trump’s second term for people from marginalized groups. I noticed that not only were there no people on the panel with visible disabilities, the topic of what could be in store for them never came up.
As a disabled person watching the process from Canada, it’s been very frustrating to see that neither candidate has a plan for disabled Americans. However, it’s been even more frustrating to realize that, for this election, there were a whole lot of people out there who were prepared to throw away their vote by voting third-party (or not at all) because they didn’t like Harris’ position on just one issue. That could be a convenient justification for not wanting to vote for her for other, less socially-acceptable reasons (her sex, her race). But I also think that it points to a concept on which Canadians and Americans differ fundmamentally and really struggle to understand each other.
“Hold Your Nose and Vote…”
If a Canadian my age (47) were to tell me that they’ve voted their entire adult life, yet never voted for someone just keep someone else out, I’d have a hard time believing them. Every Canadian has a story (sometimes many stories) of doing this, which is why we don’t judge on it - we can all relate to thinking, “X ain’t perfect, but Y is awful, and X has the best chance of beating them, so I guess that’s who I’m voting for.”
From what I’ve observed, this kind of thinking makes a lot Americans very uncomfortable. They don’t understand why we’d use it, and we don’t understand their aversion to it, especially when someone like Trump is involved.
As unnerving as it is, I’d rather throw my support behind someone who doesn’t appear to have a plan for disabled people than make the way into power even an iota easier for someone who has demonstrated that he’s willing to burn the country to the ground on a whim.
And ultimately, I think that’s what makes this so hard for me.
America Knew, And Voted Him In Anyway
What I’m about to say isn’t original - I’ve heard a couple of people say it yesterday and today, and I’m sure a lot of people are thinking it and not saying it.
The first time Trump won, I felt constantly on the edge of tears for several days after. I’d had CNN on constantly for a year, watched all the debates, all the coverage by the late night hosts, written about the campaigns in my blog, talked about it all with my American friends - I didn’t like Hilary, but I liked Trump a fuckton less, and when I saw Colbert unraveling on his Election Night show when he realized that Trump was going to win, I was right there with him.
I just feel kind of numb and empty this time around.
And I don’t think it’s because I watched a lot less media and late night coverage during the 2024 campaign. I watched the debates. I listened a lot of my favourite atheists explain to people determined to vote for third party candidates (or not at all) out of frustration with the Democrats or government in general, that:
It’s a vote for Trump
and to Trump supporters that a vote for Trump is:
A vote against rights for just about anyone who isn’t a white, cis-gender, Christian male.
A vote for Christian nationalism
A vote for a wanna-be facist with an econonic plan that's going to significantly weaken the financial position of the average American.
And the objections that callers raised to the arguments they heard about why the should vote for Harris pissed me off more consistently than anything I’d heard on the news leading up to the 2016 election - largely because, after what we’ve seen from 2016 to 2024, I figured that people should know what Trump’s capable of and not want that from their President.
I feel like they should have fucking known better than to vote him in again. I can’t get past it. Not this week, at least.
And if I can’t get past it, as a Canadian, I can only imagine what Americans are feeling this week. I’m so, so sorry this has happened.
American friends, please let us know what we can do in Canada to help. We are thinking of you.