I’m tired. I’m confused. I’m angry. I have so much to say but no sense of where to start. It’s hard to mourn something we don’t have words yet to express. But what I know is that I’m not alone. I feel our collective distress as we anticipate a darker future. We’re just beginning to make sense of the after. 

I don’t want to repeat the obvious, but it’s important to remind ourselves of the stakes. This election — presidential, congressional and local — signals a stark rightward shift in politics. Tried-and-true blue states saw slimmer margins. Trump swept all seven swing states. And the difficult truth: a majority of Americans picked him over her. So we need to ask ourselves where we are and where we’ve been. That’s the only way forward.

I don’t believe Americans are now obsessed with right-leaning politics. 63 percent of Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, 59 percent believe it’s the national government’s responsibility to ensure everyone has healthcare and 58 percent want stricter gun laws. It’s something more simple. Most Americans have lost trust in the government’s ability to take care of them. And it means Biden’s presidency. It means that only four in 10 voters at the ballot box approved of Biden’s job performance, according to exit polls. So when voters thought of the economic downturn, the border crisis and America’s foreign policy, they thought of Biden. So they thought of Harris.

I’m unsure that voters believed she distanced herself enough from Biden. Besides the fact that she was his vice president, her campaign constantly shifted rightward. She issued her support for fracking. She stopped defending a national healthcare system. She defended the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s assault in Gaza. She championed restrictive border policies. She wavered in her defense of trans healthcare. This approach to “unity” had a boomerang effect. It didn’t present her as a strong contrast to the way we do politics in America. To many voters, she was a standard politician, shifting her views to capture as many voter demographics as possible. Even though his “vision” was completely empty, Trump stood by it. And we have to be honest with ourselves. That convinced enough voters. But Harris’ campaign didn’t point voters to her. It pointed them to Trump.

Still, it’s not worth the time tossing and turning about a finished campaign. So what’s left? A capricious and senile man is the executive with the most power in American history. He’s proposed catastrophic policies. He’s promoted ill-advised tariffs, restrictions on gender and reproductive healthcare and mass waves of deportations across the United States. But Trump, himself, is an empty man. He merely amplifies our national fears and anxieties. He’s a beacon of reactive politics. When Trump claims immigrants “poison the blood of our country,” threatens to attack his political opponents, seeks to find “the enemy within” and believes news outlets should spout his propaganda, he means it. Our country is in the grasp of an American Nero. I echo John Kelly’s warning: this is fascism. And it’s led by an unstable man bent towards power. 

We’ve waited too long to name this threat. All we’ve done is hand-wave at “democratic backsliding,” allowing it to fester. It’s already been here, but now it’s had its full reveal. Our first — and most honest — reaction is to hesitate. But we cannot. We simply cannot. I can’t repeat this enough: we cannot.

What does this look like? It looks like college students fighting to protect free speech, free expression and their right to a fair education. It looks like starting referendums for universities to stop sending arms to genocidal countries, to fight for voter protections and to defend families coming to America for a better life. It looks like fundraising for reproductive justice initiatives, building mutual aid networks and supporting worker struggles. It looks like forming coalitions to defend a democratic vision for America, enshrining our basic rights to life, liberty and freedom. It looks like recognizing how each act is a step toward liberation or oppression.

I don’t use these words lightly. Neutrality is not an option. There is no neutrality in a world where ICE, DHS and other immigration agencies whisk your classmates’ parents away. There is no neutrality in a world where Trump abandons your classmates’ families in conflict zones across the world. There is no neutrality in a world where police brutality, anti-trans bills and abortion bans threaten your classmates just because of who they are. There is no neutrality when a repressive government threatens student speech. There is no neutrality in the face of fascism.

So speak up. This institution cannot stay silent. If Yale markets itself as the beacon of liberal education, then Trump’s outright rejection of free and open thought is an imminent threat. So speak up. We, students, must take a stand. Hold each other up, find comfort in one other and take action. Nothing happens alone. So speak up. There is a future where we can’t. And that’s a future we can’t afford to have. That demands a freer speech.

Allow me to repeat: speak up; speak up; and speak up. There is much left to do.

RICHIE GEORGE is a sophomore in Grace Hopper College. They can be reached at richard.george@yale.edu.