Black Experts Weigh in on Trump’s Return to the White House

With half of the country in disbelief, The Root spoke to experts about what the hell happened and how to move forward

By Phenix S Halley
The entire country was on the edge of its seat, biting fingernails and watching the shocking results roll in from each state. And now, the people have elected former President Donald Trump back into office for a second term. Although many Harris supporters were certain she’d claim victory, Jason Nichols, a senior lecturer at the University of Maryland, said he was “cautiously optimistic.”

“The hope was that she was going to hold the blue wall, and as the numbers continued to come in, we saw that wasn’t going to happen” Nichols said.
Not only did the White House flip red last night but so did the Senate and the House of Representatives. Nichols said he expected the Senate to be red, but the House remaining a Republican majority shocked him. “I was hoping we would be able to flip the House… that was disappointing,” he told The Root.

In response to the shocking results, Gevin Reynolds, a political commentator and former speechwriter for Vice President Kamala Harris, said “It’s hard to know what to say when the ‘bad guy’ wins.”

Even with such a devastating loss for the vice president, Reynolds wants us to remember what she accomplished in just over 100 days. In the shortest presidential campaign in history, Harris collected over a billion dollars in donations, dozens of celebrity endorsements, and maybe most impressively, permission from Beyoncé to use “Freedom” as her campaign song.
“Kamala Harris had three months to pull off the impossible, and she ran her race with dignity, determination, and grace,” He said. Reynolds went on to say Harris “showed strength while he [Trump] showed weakness, had plans while he had only concepts, and promised to bring us together while he threatened to drive us apart.”

Despite a loss, Reynolds said we must accept that the American people have spoken. “While it’s on us to accept the results, we can’t ignore the fact that so many communities are scared right now,” he continued. As the country continues to recover from the first Trump presidency, Reynolds notes this is no time to harp on the past or fear for the future.

“Even as Donald Trump remains hellbent on taking us backwards, our community must keep moving forward, ” Reynolds said, adding that he is hopeful that, like always, the country will pull through. “On this dark day, my prayer is that we will light flames of hope all across America to illuminate our path for the four years ahead,” he said.

Randi B, an author and DEI activist, took to TikTok to express her frustration. “Sometimes I underestimate the power of whiteness and the power of the resistance to change,” she said. Regardless of the loss, she continued saying she was “proud of how close we got.”
It’s not lost on Nichols, the lecturer at the University of Maryland, that come next year, the entire government— and the Supreme Court— will be under GOP rule. “When you give one party the House, the Senate, and the presidency, you basically give them a mandate,” he said. “The future is definitely going to be affected.”

But this is not where the story ends. Nichols continued, “When you are under the leadership of someone who is unfit, that’s not where the work ends; that’s where the work begins.”
Most importantly, Nichols said “Everybody needs to regroup and figure out what the next steps are,’’ he said.