Trump takes office again on January 20th, for those of us working to advance gender equality and intersecting issues, where do we collectively go from here? What do we need to focus on?
I think the fact that he is being inaugurated on the same day as Martin Luther King, I think it allows us to level set. Our democracy has been built on ebbs and flows, meaning that every single time we're about to make a big breakthrough, if you look at our history, we've always taken a major step back. And we should look at the eve of his inauguration as the opportunity to say, “What is it that we need to do for this moment?” But also, “What have we learned from when he was in office last time?” And one of the things we learned last time was that groups of multicultural Americans came together and spoke very directly at what our values were, and our values were very much creating a robust equity-driven agenda for Americans to thrive.
And we were highly successful when we organized. In 2018, we became the most diverse body that we'd ever seen. And in 2020 we doubled down and did the same. I think what happened in 2024 was people got weary because change didn't happen fast enough. And if we look at the lens of being weary of the last six years versus the real backdrop of our history of 240, we're not going to advance, right? But what I remind folks is that if an issue as major as student loan forgiveness can get traction in less than 10 years, that allows to wipe out debt for millions of Americans, it was because we all came together and said that was a value.
It took the civil rights movement of giving equity for every American to vote over a hundred years. So in that narrow mindspan of instant gratification, a decade actually doesn't seem very long. And I think we have to remind ourselves that even though the outcome of this election made us feel uneasy, when it came to issues of reproductive rights at the state level, people, regardless of political stripes, came out in support of it. So things are not lost.
What we need to be adamant about and understand is that our democracy is incumbent and thrives when we do not do a patchwork of laws at the state level, because then it becomes quilted. What we need is actually a universal truth that women should have access to abortion care. We have to get back to Roe versus Wade. We have to hold the accountability of these Republicans and Democrats that might feel that it was solved at the state level. We actually have to create pressure from the bottom, saying, “No. We need universal coverage. We need universal equity.” And while it seems that the people that are holding the power in the White House are adverse, they're also a lame duck. When we see it through a lens, we shouldn't yield our power to someone walking into that oval office that has four years. We yield our power when we create a space where that person can think that they have more.
But if we say, “You're a lame duck, and you, Congressman or Congresswoman, want to get reelected? This is a value that you have to push on our behalf at the national level so that we have universal rights.” I think if we look at it from that lens of what those protections that are providing, it allows us to recognize that it was not, again, in Ruby Red States, plenty of Republicans voted for abortion access. So there are places where we can come together and have more astute conversations. That person with that collective body can create pressure in their chambers if we are adamant that this is a value.
How do we make progress during this time? And are there any new strategies we should be adopting in terms of organizing or coalition building?
Again, I point back to what made us successful in 2018 and 2020. We were very intersectional in our movements. And I think that in 2022, we became siloed to an issue that we cared about, not recognizing the intersectionality that if someone goes after abortion or they go after trans or they go after immigrants, they're fundamentally eroding what democracy means. Because democracy means equitable treatment of every single citizen, regardless of how overrepresented or underrepresented they are. And that means we need to have convenings and conversations that are not siloed, but that are intersectional. So I think we missed the opportunity to see the person as a whole and have conversations intersectionally as a whole to realize that these values that we share together are not isolated to abortion and are not isolated to the environment or to LGBTQ, for example, but that it is a collective of all the inputs that makes a human an active citizen.
And if we do that, then it feels less overwhelming because we realize that we are many more than the folks that came out [to vote]. We have roughly 7 million Americans that didn't show up this time that did last time, but it was because we weren't talking to them in their collectiveness. And in some cases, people didn't even get a call. So if we consider in the next two years, because we have an opportunity to change Congress, it's going to be highly communicative, giving people information they can use so that they can make impact, whether it's calling your members of Congress because of X, Y, Z or it's holding your local folks accountable.
But I do think that we have to make sure that we understand that in this new era that we're going to be playing, it's going to be less about policy and more about communication and strategy and recognizing that as leaders and the platform that you carry, the power in that, because people trust that you are on their side, that you're going to give them information that they can use to meet the moment. I think that we undervalue that sometimes, the platforms that we hold, but they become incredibly important when it comes to communicating truth.
And something we have to keep in mind is that the first a hundred days are going to be very critical because if you look at other incoming governments that are trying to disrupt a democracy, oftentimes what they do is they overwhelm the system and they try to overwhelm folks in a way so that they could tap out of participating. So if we’re very clear-eyed that there's going to be an onslaught of values, that we're going to have our hair on fire, and we're very clear that we are going to push back collectively on issues that try to undermine our democracy, I think that becomes really important. And I also think that if we are very clear that it is the strength of our intersectionality that actually creates the fabric of resistance, it allows us to also not tap out.
Their purpose of trying to create divisiveness among Americans is a strategy because if we are so confronted with fighting each other, we will not be paying attention to the grift that is about to happen. They want us having these conversations of cultural issues because they will have the reins of policing the government if we're not at attention and undermining the institutions that have taken 240 years to build.
What is your call to action?
The first thing that comes to mind is that this is a marathon, not a sprint. And if we look at it through that lens, one of the things that made us successful last time around in defeating him was that we were attuned to information and we were aware of what was happening. And I think that people are trying to tap out, the news is going to get heavier, and that is absolutely true. So how do you create spaces for your own resilience and your own mental wellbeing? By creating community locally, but also making sure that you are receiving news that allows you to call that member of Congress.
Right now our biggest defense is completely old school: it is firing up those phones. A long time ago, I used to work on the Hill, and what people don't realize is that every single time you sign a letter, every single time you make a phone call, that phone call represents 10,000 constituents for that representative; that letter represents 10,000 constituents. They take it really seriously. But you have to be from that district. And I know that it sounds Pollyannaish, but if you are a member that won with 800,000 votes and you have even 800 people calling you about an issue that you really care about in these congressional districts—no one won by a landslide—that call does impact and change their equation, and it makes them, at minimum, think twice. Because, again, they're not lame ducks, but the president is.
The U.S. once again failed to elect our first woman president. What will it take to get a woman president and more women into political leadership? And how can we make sure this moment is not discouraging for girls and women?
Until we have a woman president that will always be a factor. But what it tells me is that women who are considering running for office, we've always been in places in workspaces where it hasn't been easy, where it hasn't been welcoming, where you have to prove yourself. I often say that when I walk into a room and if I see another Latino in a C-suite, I know that person had to earn it, the woman had to earn it. Kamala Harris was the vice president, not because she was a Black woman, she was a vice president because she was smart, credentialed, ran the second largest law enforcement outside of the federal government—she had the bona fides.
And I do think that had she been given breadth, it would've been turned out. But that's hindsight. What I do think, though, is that what we didn't have prior to 2016 was a deep-seated bench of incredibly talented women leaders. And the loss of Hillary Clinton achieving her goal to be in the White House, along with the juxtaposition of who was elected, which was a misogynist, gave thousands of women the opportunity to throw their hat in the ring, run for office and win. And I can't think of a better example of the fortitude of women's leadership. When we look at Gretchen Whitmer and Jocelyn Benson, they are incredible leaders. And they did it in the thick of the first Trump administration. And I think that what we're seeing right now, if you look at Emily's List and the women that they've helped, the amount of women that they've trained up that are starting from school board all the way up, what we see is a vast opportunity of talent of women that were not there before.
The excuse before was that we just didn't have enough of a bench. We have an incredible bench. They're just aging into that bench. And so we need to make sure that if we deeply believe that women lead differently, they prioritize life differently, then we have to make sure that we are not just retweeting them, but we have to throw support with them by giving them $5. One of the biggest barriers of entry for women to run for office is that oftentimes they don't have the network of resources as cis white men. So that $5 actually boosts the confidence of like, “Okay, I'm not the only one who thinks I can do this,” but it also translates into real political power. Outside of the disinformation that the online platforms have been able to yield, they became the democratization of fundraising for women because, before, it was the parties that decided, but if we look at it as that $5 can turn into $10,000 that can turn into a $100,000, that allows us to start building the leadership that they're going to need and the war chest to actually win elections.
Unlike before, we have a bench where they now have a portfolio of successes, so it's going to be less of a crapshoot. We actually have women that are at the forefront of some of our hardest issues that say, “Look, this is what I've been able to do.”
What gives you hope? For those feeling disheartened by this setback or overwhelmed by the work ahead, what words of encouragement would you offer?
I think it's important for us to all take a beat. This is a marathon, and we have to give each other grace and a space to think strategically of what is next. And that includes seeing what we can do at the very local level. And I do think that the greatest access that we have at the local level is putting pressure on our congressional members. We are going to see both sides of the aisle take the wrong lessons from this election, thinking that people don't care about equity and they don't care about inclusion. And I think that is actually the wrong lesson. I think that it was what got us out of bed in 2018 and 2020 in the middle of a pandemic to cast a ballot. We were still in the thick of Covid, but then we still had the throes of the unrest of George Floyd. And that was what got us out of bed: more equity. Abortion had reared its ugly head of being on the voting block. And we rallied. And I think we have to make sure that we remind ourselves that we have to not let the Democrats or the Republicans think that what happened in November was a carte blanche that we don't care about our rights, because that's not what happened.
As a child of immigrants, I understand what a democracy on paper looks like. I understand what a democracy that doesn't care about its people looks like—that's what my family fled. And what gives me hope and strength and gets me up in the morning is that, for how imperfect the election turned out and the big threats that lie ahead, I know for a fact that there are more of us that believe in a more inclusive vision of America. I know that. And we have to make sure that the folks who believe that, who have tapped out because they feel overwhelmed, that we bring them back in. Because by not doing that, by us resigning ourselves to a weakened democracy, then we are actually giving way to incredible privilege that we may not deserve our democracy. I look at what's happening in Ukraine where people are losing their lives for a democracy that is less than 20 years old because they understand what the opposition is, they understand what it means when the government dictates who you are, who you love, what your work is dedicated to, the grift that comes with it. And if our job as Americans is simply standing in line to cast a ballot, what a privilege.
Portions of this interview appeared at ForbesWomen and Women’s Media Center.