If I had to say something about Donald Trump’s victory to people who are currently in shock, I would say this: You should be angry.

What I see around me is depression. Grief. Despair.

But people should be angry. In particular, angry at the army of Democratic Party consultants and hackers who have taken over. 1 billion dollars of their money, sent millions of text messages, begging, pleading pathetically. They paid themselves well. And then they ruined it so much that we’re going to pay for it for the rest of our lives.

Why are all the political columnists and podcasters so deferential, even when they diagnose the obvious, that this campaign was a world-historic failure? Why do they do say“Of course, Harris did his best with a bad hand…” etc. ? Because they identify with and cover up this failed political machine. But You I shouldn’t.

Want to see a really bad piece of election art? No, that’s not the case. You probably want to think about something else or cry. But I think it’s such a bad job that it might tell you something about this sad and scary election result. It’s here.

MoveOn.org poster for Kamala Harris in Brooklyn. Photo by Ben Davis.

The posters were paid for by a liberal non-profit association MoveOn.org. I ran into them as it became increasingly clear that Kamala Harris was struggling to communicate a clear message that distanced herself from her deeply unpopular predecessor, Joe Biden.

Aside from the obvious question (“Why is MoveOn wasting donation money to display Brooklyn?”), the closer I looked at this stark likeness of Harris, the more perplexed I became about the state of spirit of the people who ordered it.

MoveOn.org poster for Kamala Harris in Brooklyn. Photo by Ben Davis.

If you look closely, his face is rendered entirely from emojis. Harris’ eyes are smiling faces. His skin, his punch emojis. His lips, for some reason, are swarms of octopuses. The word “VOTE” is made up of ballot box emojis. And of course, her necklace is adorned with coconut emojis.

This is a piece of art that clearly and proudly says, “Look closely and you’ll see that Kamala Harris’s support is an incoherent mass of internet waves. » This is worse than Shepard Fairey’s self-plagiarism on his “HOPE” poster of Obama, a bad and lifeless Harris. resemblance with the insipid slogan “FORWARD”. (Ahead of what? To where?)

A poster of Kamala Harris seen among delegates on the fourth day of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center on August 22, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois (Photo by Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Neither of them really understood. Nothing really worked after the mirage of “Brat Summer,” which was turned into self-parody (i.e., cringe).Democracy is a kid“posters). There has been noticeably less artistic engagement around this election – probably partly exhaustion from years and years of outrage, partly bitterness among the more politically active artists over the administration. unreasonable Politics in Gaza.

Harris ran an accelerated version of Hillary’s 2016 campaign, based on insubstantial memes, wild “opportunity economics” proposals that no one understood, a focus on Trump as a bad and embarrassing man , and a call to Republicans from Liz Cheney who have proven to be non-existent. Its only flagship issue, reproductive rights, was more than wiped out by a proven failure to connect it to anger over the economy. All the talk about “politics of joy” mistook partisan relief at being done with the decrepit Biden for a broad base and made it seem out of touch with the growing discontent of the American public.

Former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney speaks during a town hall with Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris at the Royal Oak Music Theater October 21, 2024 in Royal Oak, Michigan. (Photo by Sarah Rice/Getty Images)

“Against normalization” was once a rallying cry against Trump. In retrospect, that was actually a bad way to look at it. It would be great if it had been normalized, because then it would be associated with a status quo that large swathes of the public hate. good reasons. Instead, constantly emphasizing how extraordinary Trump was made him seem appealing and even countercultural, even though he had been in office. (Bernie Sanders, tragically, has allowed himself to be normalized, diluting his effectiveness in speaking to the anger of outsiders.)

Well, I’m just a guy. What do I know? The polls were incredibly close. I doubt that even Trump officials didn’t really understand, until the end, the magnitude of their correct bet. But expressing anger at the direction the country is taking and his thirst for big change has clearly proven effective.

Who knows what the reaction will be in the streets when Trump begins to implement an agenda that I guarantee will be unpopular in practice with many of the people who voted for him?

Campaign posters for Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris are seen on a wall along Twelfth Street on November 4, 2024 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

But for now, there appears to be no return of #Resistance-style protests, in part because Trump won decisively and expanded his coalition so dramatically. On social networks there is a tone of mourning withdrawn into itself, hurt and stunned. On the media host Micah Loewinger said that there is unlikely to be another significant “Trump move” for liberal publications because people are exhausted and disillusioned.

The institutions that underpin institutional liberalism – academia, journalism, and culture – are already in various states of decay, and it won’t take much of a shock to shatter them further. In the meantime, there is now a solid parallel world of far-right popular culture which has clearly established itself at the center of the conversation.

I would expect that in the short term, many people will disconnect, disengage, avoid politics, retreat to Netflix, bombard their minds with drugs, increasingly adopt desperately happy spiritual practices – depending on who you are. I’m not saying that’s what I’m advocating, just that, realistically, that’s what I expect.

Posters of Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris are plastered on a downtown wall during the first day of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) August 19, 2024 in Chicago, USA. Illinois. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

That’s because people are experiencing a narrative shock similar to the one they faced after Biden collapsed on stage during the debate — traumatic in itself, but particularly because up until that point, momenta lot in the media had insisted that Biden’s mental ineptitude was Republican propaganda, that he was about to the advantage of the school. Because it was a more heartwarming story, a better product to sell.

It’s not just Donald Trump’s victory. It’s that the entire Biden era’s attempt to technically disqualify him for his crimes and lies and January 6 prevented consideration of Trump’s very real popularity in 2020, when he actually got a very massive total of popular votes despite his defeat (and his lies). losing). Focusing so much emotional energy solely on pointing out that he must be too bizarre, too criminal to be acceptable to the American “mainstream” – and then suddenly having to face the reality that he is actually much more mainstream than his. reviews themselves… it’s a stunning shock.

We should be angry about the professional, paid political storytellers who told such a false narrative. Save yourself from depression – that is, they subliminally tell you: “there was nothing we could have done” so that nothing would change. Clearly say out loud to yourself: “These people are chess. This policy has failed.”

A pedestrian walks past a Kamala Harris vote poster along a sidewalk on October 12, 2024 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Photo by Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)

In the miserable post-election torpor, we see people circulate the same quote from Toni Morrison that had passed around after the loss of 2016: “This is precisely the moment when artists get to work”, we can read. “There is no time for despair, no room for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write… This is how civilizations heal.

This comes from an essay boasting The nationwritten for the magazine’s anniversary in 2015 and celebrating its tradition of “disruptive, in-depth and intelligent essays sharing ample space equally with art criticism, reviews, poetry and drama”. This feeling alone has its merits as a consolation. But, once again, the particular mix of politics and culture of recent times has not exactly proven to be the best tool, and perhaps even has hurt.

Read Morrison’s essay until the end, where she says: “Like failure, chaos contains information that can lead to knowledge, even wisdom.” » Then ask yourself what wisdom needs to be extracted from this new chaos to prevent the resulting culture from once again contributing to a cycle of self-deception. For me, Morrison’s quote is best paired with another from Horkheimer and Adorno in Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947), on how fascism takes hold: “Educated people have made it easier for the barbarians of the whole world by being so stupid. »