I will preface this by saying I understand that I am more radical, revolutionary, and extreme of a leftist than most. Despite that, I still ask that you actually engage with this as I’m asking in good faith.
When is enough enough? We have elected a fascist into the highest office and handed the keys to him and his friends. Is now not the time to actually get organized, involved, and armed? In my opinion, the time for peaceful, democratic means of avoiding fascism was before the election. But we have failed to do so, and as such there will soon be a tyrant in power. Are we going to wait until troops are rolling down the street to stage any form of resistance, because by then it’s far too late. Now I want to be clear that I am not advocating for random acts of violence or an insurrection like January 6th. But is this not a point of radicalization? Is this not where we start organizing within our communities and getting involved in mutual aid and resistance? How much more do we need before people are actually ready to stand, fight, and maybe even die to avoid continuing down the path that we are on? Fascism is not on the horizon, it is here. Are we really to do nothing about it as a society except lay down and accept our fate? Because that doesn’t jive with me. That makes absolutely no sense to me.
In absolute terms, they aren’t the majority. 73m voted for him out of the 161m eligible voters in the US, or ~45% (Harris has ~43%). Still a frighteningly high number, but it also means it’s possible to find support for resistance, at least if things start to get bad enough. Unfortunately, there are a lot of Americans that like to think that politics don’t concern them and that we should just be apolitical. So they’re going to need a wake-up call first before they would lend their support. Trump will likely give it to them in short order as his fascist policies start to directly affect them.
Also, keep in mind that the total population (~334m as of 2023) is much larger than the population that is eligible to vote. There are many young people that are too young to vote now but still old enough to fight tyranny, former felons who are ineligible to vote but eager to fight oppressive systems, not to mention the scores of people not counted among eligible voters due to not being registered to vote, either through complacency/disillusionment (see above) or active sabotage and disenfranchisement by Republicans (and in many ways, you could say these are one in the same).
Fascists may have power and have won the popular vote, but it doesn’t mean it’s the will of the people. It means they’ve successfully gamed our very broken system. But real, average people living their lives will fight when the oppression comes to them. Maybe it will be too late, but maybe not. Revolution only needs a single spark.