This year’s election was full of symbolism, hope and possibility. Many of us thought that this would be the year that the United States would finally do what many other democracies have already done: elect a woman to the nation’s highest office. I thought we were ready to close the sad chapter of men meddling with women’s reproductive health and treating them like chattel. I thought we had moved beyond the racism and sexism that were being flaunted in our faces and were on full display in campaign commercial after commercial. I was wrong, and I and many others are forced to come to terms with the reality that something amid the psyche of many Americans, perhaps integral to it, permitted them to elect a convicted felon who preys on the weak and vulnerable among us while rejecting a highly qualified Black woman of Jamaican and South Asian descent.
As wrong as I might have been about how enlightened Americans are today, I am clear on the fact that the hopes and aspirations of a divided society will not rest solely on the results of national elections. Public officials at the state and local levels will, and must, continue to play an important part in the economic security and recovery that many claim they seek.
Workers cited the economy and inflation in survey after survey in their grievances against the Biden-Harris administration and support for Donald Trump. Neither the president nor local officials directly control the costs of food and gas, but state and local officials can and often do promulgate policies that can affect the cost of living.
We all know, for instance, that too many Americans must spend a disproportionate amount of their income on housing. Working together, state and local officials can begin to address that problem. They can cut down on the regulations that make building new and affordable homes difficult in many jurisdictions, as Kamala Harris proposed. They can offer property tax exemptions, as many already do, for living in targeted communities. They can provide down-payment assistance, perhaps along the lines of the $25,000 that Harris talked about, to incentivize first-time home purchases. They also can crack down on unscrupulous landlords who jack up rents and evict long-term renters who happen to fall on hard times. If state and local governments could ensure that residents would need to pay no more than 30 percent of their monthly earnings on housing, the average renter would have more income to go toward other necessities like food, gas and child care.
Aside from the economy, Harris voters said they cared more about democracy and Trump supporters said they cared about immigration. In many ways those issues conflict, but they both seem to be bellwethers for at least two distinct directions the country might be headed: one toward the ideas expressed in the sonnet The New Colossus engraved at the base of the Statue of Liberty, the other toward isolationism and culture wars around what it means to be an American. Both directions will be played out in national conversations and felt locally as more municipalities try to mitigate harm to immigrants, including by becoming sanctuary cities, and county and state prosecutors pursue cases where the constitutional rights of citizens have obviously been abused.
If we no longer will be able to look to the federal government for leadership on many of these important issues, then it will have to come from local and state public officials, and they must be willing and ready to lead.
As the vice president conceded the election last Wednesday, it was difficult watching her try to control her emotions, still managing to flash that trademark smile while barely getting through what must have been the most difficult speech of her life. But leaders at all levels of government who genuinely want to move our communities forward should draw inspiration from her words: “While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign … for freedom, for opportunity, for fairness, and the dignity of all people.”
I heard those words and thought about the meaning of my own life, one that has been centered on the fight for freedom, fairness and dignity. And I wondered about my devastated daughters: Will they still believe in an America with limitless opportunities? But the words the vice president used to comfort the many teary-eyed young people who came to honor her historic run should comfort us as well: “Sometimes the fight takes a while. … The important thing is don't ever give up. Don't ever stop trying to make the world a better place.”
Governing’s opinion columns reflect the views of their authors and not necessarily those of Governing’s editors or management.
