November 6, 2024
Thank you to everyone who worked on behalf of the PSC’s endorsed candidates. There were a number of important successes in the legislature. When it comes to the race for President, however, the outcome is devastating and dangerous. Trump’s election is a threat to democracy. Republicans won a majority in the Senate and are threatening to win a majority in the House. Please check on your loved ones and take a deep breath. Show solidarity to the people in your life who are more at risk today than yesterday, and try to be present for your students and colleagues. Then prepare for the struggles ahead.
We should be clear: Trump’s election is a victory for fascism in the United States. His anti-worker, misogynist, racist, xenophobic agenda will make many lives more miserable and painful here and around the world if left unchecked. That is where we come in. The Trump movement has us in their crosshairs as educators and unionists. Educators need to redouble our efforts to build our power and reassert the role of knowledge and critical thinking to a functioning democracy. Unionists understand the power of solidarity and will need to exercise collective action. An autocrat like Trump can only have gained the support of so many Americans by playing to our fears and anxieties, because his policies and the Project 2025 blueprint cannot help us and will in fact harm us – some more than others.
It is hard to say what is most broken when a convicted felon, someone who announced in advance his intention to rule like a dictator, is elected U.S. President. But what’s troubled me the most is the right-wing assault on truth and the very idea of verifiability. That assault has been swift and effective. Those of us who work in higher education engage our students in the production of knowledge and the search for truth. Whatever our discipline or field, our work is about cultivating an informed citizenry. The movement that Trump leads is fundamentally about undermining that project. As we’ve seen in Florida, Texas and elsewhere, he and his acolytes aim not only to discredit and defund educational institutions but also to undermine the values and principles on which the public education system is built.
It is a wake-up call for organized labor that Trump’s movement has effectively harnessed such broad support of working people and the poor. The conservative elite in this country believed they could use Trump to move their agenda, cloaked in populist rhetoric. But Trump’s movement has also used them. We in the labor movement and in higher education must rise collectively to this moment to contain and defeat autocracy.
We can mourn what this election reveals about our country, and today we should take a moment to breathe, but then we must organize.
The PSC is part of a quickly forming coalition of grassroots organizations and labor unions mounting a “Protect our Futures” rally and march in Manhattan this Saturday November 9th at 12 noon.The event will begin with a rally at Columbus Circle. Fill out the PSC webform linked below to let us know you will come.
We’ll take stock and talk about next steps at an online election debrief open to all PSC members on Monday, November 11th at 12PM. Here is the registration. I hope you will attend.
James Davis
PSC President
Published: November 6, 2024
