If you’ve been in your feelings since the 2024 presidential election was decided, you’re not alone: According to CNN exit polls, 86 percent of Black voters showed up to the polls to let Donald Trump know that they were not in the mood to let him unleash any more crazy on the country.
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Alas, here we are facing an uncertain economy, mass deportations and the possibility of getting involved in yet another war in the Middle East. With all of that going on, it’s easy to understand why people of color might want to sit on their sofas and give the rest of the world a big fat “I told you so.” Even still, Joy Reid, journalist, author and host of the all-new “The Joy Reid Show” on YouTube, gave us a pretty damn good argument for why we shouldn’t sit this one out.
Since her exit from MSNBC in February, Reid has continued to use her platform to warn us about the impact of a second Trump term on communities of color. She told us that while she understands why Black people are tired of constantly trying to save the country from a person who wants to roll back any progress we’ve made in our nearly 250-year history, she doesn’t know any other group willing to raise their hand to do the job.
“I overstand why Black people say, ‘I did my part and you didn’t listen to us. Now you have to suffer the consequences,’” Reid told The Root. “It’s unfortunate that this country has had to continually rely on us to be its conscience. But this country doesn’t have a strong moral compass without us. It’s exhausting work and we shouldn’t have to do it. They should know better, but they don’t.”
But in the same breath, Reid warns that the impact of Trump’s MAGA agenda is going to affect all of us, whether we choose to get out on the front lines and protest or just sit back and sip our tea.
“Fascism is going to come for you anyway,” she said. “It’s going to come for you at school. It’s going to come for you at work. It’s going to come for your promotions and your kids’ ability to go to school. It’s going to come for your access to public health.”
Although the founders envisioned three co-equal branches of government empowered to check the others if anything got out of hand, Reid says Trump is undoing it all with his stronghold on Congress and the courts. She said Congressional Republicans won’t push back on Trump because he’s useful in helping convince their base, who are largely Trump loyalists, to go along with things that will hurt them, like tax cuts for the rich and cuts to life-saving programs like Medicaid.
“They want bad things that are bad for MAGA people too, but Trump has this magical hold on these people and he can pass off policies they could never pass through Congress,” she said.
While Reid believes our institutions aren’t capable of slowing down the Trump train, she thinks an opposition movement with a charismatic leader could. And while Democrats decide who they’ll trust to lead us out of despair, she suggests the rest of us buckle up for what comes next.
“I believe we’re going to go through some things before we get out of this,” she said. “Because we’re not the first country that this has happened to, and in most countries, it has not happened for a short time. It happens for a long time, and it’s not fun.”
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