It is more important than ever to stay engaged, to resist the urge to flee or opt out of the political process when we get that taste of loss or rejection.
As a political scientist researching refugee issues, I have often wondered what it must feel like to lose—or be rejected by—your country. On election night, I felt like I got a small taste of that.
The feeling of being sold out by your country is all too familiar for many Americans. In my university classes, I teach undergraduates about the ways in which people on the land that is today the United States have been accepted or rejected as American citizens and how even those who have gained citizenship must continually fight for their status as full citizens.
Students and I discuss the rights of citizens and noncitizens, the 14th Amendment, which granted citizenship to formerly enslaved people and promised equal protection and due process under the law, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. We discuss issues facing minority groups including indigenous, Black and LGBTQ Americans. And we discuss marginalized majority groups: women and working and middle-class Americans. Students learn how all these struggles persist over decades, if not centuries.
You may know that Indigenous people have survived hundreds of years of regimes intended to destroy them. But did you know that the Founding Fathers based American democracy on the “Iroquois Confederacy” or Haudenosaunee Confederacy (how-dih-no-shaw-nee) of tribal nations? Did you know that the Haudenosaunee Confederacy rejected U.S. citizenship, which was imposed on them by the 1887 Ingall’s Bill and passed without their consent?
You may know that Black Americans have survived more than 400 years of slavery and oppression. You may have heard of the most significant social movement in U.S. history: the civil rights movement. But did you know that the everyday Americans who made up the civil rights movement were not fighting for any “new” rights but were instead fighting to gain the rights already promised through the 14th Amendment and Civil Rights Act of 1866 nearly 100 years earlier?
You may know that LGBTQ people faced imprisonment, institutionalization in insane asylums, and being purged from their service to the U.S. government and military. But did you know that the brave act of “coming out” has ushered one of the most dramatic changes of public opinion in U.S. history? Did you know that 14 openly LGBTQ people were elected to Congress and federal courts in the 2024 election?
As Vice President Kamala Harris said in her concession speech, “Sometimes the fight takes a while.”
Like many, I underestimated the broad appeal of former President Donald Trump to more than half of the Americans who cast ballots. He was a historically unpopular president and one of the few to be ousted by voters after a first term. This isn’t my first rodeo, but as a political scientist, and as a human being, I have legitimate concerns about the next rodeo.
I am deeply troubled by the anti-immigrant right-wing populist message that Trump ran on (again) and what it means for this country. I fully anticipate that he will fill his cabinet with cronies who do not represent the interests of everyday Americans. This may include the extremist anti-immigrant architect Stephen Miller who has caused immense suffering for some of the most vulnerable people in the world through cruel policies like family separation at the U.S.-Mexico border.
As for leaders who stake their claim on the backs of the marginalized, I feel similar to how Abraham Lincoln felt about the anti-immigrant populist party of his day: The Know-Nothings.
He wrote in 1855 (original spellings honored):
“When the Know-Nothings get control, [the Constitution] will read ‘all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics. When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy.”
I hear that. But many don’t have the option to move. Others do not have the option to stay in their home countries. There are an unprecedented numbers of displaced people in the world—including refugees and asylum seekers attempting to find safety in the United States.
History and politics are cyclical. Logically, I know this is how the American story goes. (And so many stories across the globe.) But it still hurts anyway. There are big changes coming, but as the late civil rights icon, Rep. John Lewis, wrote in his masterful op-ed published posthumously: “The truth does not change.”
It is on us to speak that truth to power. It is more important than ever to stay engaged, to resist the urge to flee or opt out of the political process when we get that taste of loss or rejection—a feeling that’s all too familiar for many Americans.
