Reflecting on the election
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The election did not go as I had hoped, and I want to use this space to reflect on it. Skip this if you're sick of reading about politics and/or are happy that Trump was re-elected.
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I'm disappointed, but not in the people that voted for Trump, as I don't think they are all racist, sexist, evil idiots, as many progressives seem to think they are.
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From what I can tell, they feel a rising anger that things seem to be getting worse for them. The system isn't working for them, and they want change. Trump may be a convicted felon and an aggrandizing narcissist, but he is definitely different than the career politicians, and he acknowledges that there are problems in America instead of telling them that everything is better than it has ever been (as Biden / Harris / Democrats were trying to say). The fact that he espouses racist, sexist policies doesn't bother his followers, because empathy and compassion for others depends on safety and security; when people feel like they are drowning, they just try to save themselves even at the cost of others.
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Look at this CPI index for the last few years, especially gasoline where the price doubled in the last four years. Most Americans drive ~10,000 miles per year, which means that if their car gets 20 miles/gallon, that's an extra $1,000 they had to spend (let alone eggs and milk and meat going up in price also!). Roughly 40% of Americans can't handle an unexpected expense of $400, which means that to find an extra $1,000 for gas to get to work, they had to give up something essential in their lives, or go further into debt - a Google search revealed that credit card debt is up nearly 50% since the first quarter of 2021.
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The Democrats never acknowledged that hardship, perhaps because the so-called "college-educated elites" running policy didn't even notice the change in food and gas prices, and focused more on the stock market (which only benefits a minority of Americans). They didn't talk to people's lived experience.
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That being said, this difference was amplified by media that is creating two different realities, as illustrated by this Ipsos article describing the connection between media consumption and political opinions: "Americans who answer questions about inflation, crime, and immigration incorrectly are more likely to opt for Trump, while Americans who answer those questions correctly prefer Harris." When people get their news from social media or other sources with no fact-checking, they become more easily manipulated by those with an agenda.
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While I'll be okay in a Trump presidency as a white-passing man living with financial privilege in California, many others will suffer, especially immigrants, transgender people, people with darker skin, women (apparently the new horrifying saying is "Your body, my choice"), and basically anybody who doesn't look like the 1950s show, Leave it to Beaver.
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I want to pause to acknowledge here my own complicity in not doing more here. I have the privilege of knowing I'll probably be okay in a Trump America, and that if it gets really bad, I can leave. I did not treat this election as existential, and did not put in the work or funding to stop the election of Trump, in part because I didn't believe my contributions would make much difference. But I'll never know because I didn't try.
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I finally got around to reading Jerry Colonna's book Reunion: Leadership and the Longing to Belong recently, and one of his themes is that those of us with privilege have to own how we are complicit in maintaining the system we say we don't want.
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- I say I don't want a society based on extractive capitalism, but my wealth was largely created by working at Google for ten years during its monopolistic heyday, and I continue to make a living from tech executives who often make money in extractive ways that reward addictive behaviors.
- I say I don't want a racist society, but I live in a rich suburb. I at least chose a town that is slightly more diverse (40% white, 33% Asian, 18% Hispanic) but my immediate social circle is primarily white.
- I say that it's important to understand those different from us, but I live in the Silicon Valley bubble and stopped engaging with people from my Illinois hometown and never made an attempt to connect with others in "Trump country" because the cultural gap between us seemed unbridgeable.
Colonna's book was in part inspired by his daughter participating in the Black Lives Matter protests, and reminding him "Dad...it's not enough to be an ally. You've got to be a co-conspirator." I have been content to be an ally over the past few years, and the challenge before me is to become more of a co-conspirator. And all of us with more privilege have a chance to protect and shield those with less privilege over the next four years.
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On that point, don't start something yourself in your rush to help. There is somebody who has already been doing what you want to do for years, and they know how to help better than you. Go support them, and learn from them. This advice came up in my Facebook feed recently and and my friend Lina Srivastava posted something similar when Trump was first elected in 2016. The individualistic culture of America where people feel they have to do everything themselves is what led us to this separation; the way to change that culture is to connect and develop a sense of interdependence and mutual aid, rather than focusing solely on independence.
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Ironically, the 1950s safety that Trump is trying to re-create was enabled by high tax rates, strong unions, and an understanding that we are all in this together. The Republicans / capitalists hated the taxes, so they found ways to turn us against each other and break up that understanding, as Heather McGhee described in her book The Sum of Us (key quote: "In the two-hundred-year history of American industrial work, there’s been no greater tool against collective bargaining than employers’ ability to divide workers by gender, race, or origin, stoking suspicion and competition across groups.") Today's polarization across political parties is a continuation of that division, reinforced by separate media creating separate realities.
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If we could instead re-find our common cause of taking care of each other, rather than prioritizing preservation of capital, America would be a healthier place (McGhee writes “A functioning society rests on a web of mutuality, a willingness among all involved to share enough with one another to accomplish what no one person can do alone.”). This is one reason why European countries that are smaller and less diverse tend to be better places to live because they are more willing to support each other. But we are unlikely to find that mutuality when we demonize each other.
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Which brings me back to my intention for the last couple years to connect with courage and vulnerability. One of the myths that late-stage extractive capitalism has created is that each person's value is only in what they can "produce" for capitalists. But this is a reductive way to view the richness and depth of people, while it also ignores the caring work we do outside of the paid economy (see my post on de-capitalization or my last newsletter for further discussion). This reductive view is also reflected in defining people by the single dimension of their skin color, their sexuality, their gender, their political beliefs. It's easy to fall into that reductive view when our local communities have lost their depth of connection, hollowed out by social media and the convenience of the Internet and delivery culture.
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I don't know how to change the political landscape. I don't know how to create more safety for those threatened by Trump, or for those who voted for Trump out of a feeling of economic insecurity. The problems of America seem too big to change, and yet I still believe we each can make a difference by living in integrity with our beliefs. Those behaviors ripple outwards and we act as role models for each other to create the world we want. And connecting with depth to other humans is a way to reject the reductive view and take a stand at the value of humanity.
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"the work of liberation and transformation doesn’t begin or end with elections. Real change will emerge from the communities we build, the stories we change, and the power we share. Our connections, dialogue, solidarity, and mutual care and love can construct a shared humanity. We have to continue to believe that."
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I encourage you to keep believing that your actions can make a difference, and to Be a Revolution (to use Ijeoma Oluo's book title). Please share ideas you have to make a difference, or just reach out to connect. We will need each other more than ever over the coming years; protect those that you can. Do something.
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And now for the normal personal development content…
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LinkedIn: These are ideas that have helped my clients (or myself), and that I share via LinkedIn to help a wider audience, and archive here.
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- ProjectNext Leadership, a consulting company with whom I'm an associate coach, released their 2025 Leadership Insights Report. I offer my observations here - tl;dr: the tension between delivering results while building the relationships that enable cross-functional collaboration means developing clarity on what is most important. Finding that clarity amidst complexity is often a reason why executives are investing in coaching. You can download the report here.
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A few articles on the election:
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- This Time We Have to Hold the Democratic Party Elite Responsible for This Catastrophe by Jeet Heer in The Nation. "Democrats will need to radically reform themselves if they want to ever defeat the radical right. They have to realize that non-college-educated voters, who make up two-thirds of the electorate, need to be won over. They need to realize that, for anti-system Americans, a promised return to bipartisan comity is just ancien régime restoration. They need to become the party that aspires to be more than caretakers of a broken system but rather is willing to embrace radical policies to change that status quo."
- Bernie Sanders issued a similar statement: "It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right."
- Ben Thompson of Stratechery made a fascinating observation about Elon Musk and Trump in his election article. Musk identified that Trump would be immensely valuable for all of his businesses (Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter), and decided that getting Trump elected was the most important thing he could do. So he made the "decision to fully immerse himself in this election, including what appeared to be manipulation of the “For You” algorithm, funding a massive GOTV operation, and campaigning on the ground in Pennsylvania on a near daily basis for the last few weeks. Musk identified the U.S. regulatory state as a fundamental limiter on SpaceX in particular, and a threat to himself and his businesses generally, and instead of playing both sides, went all in on getting one particular candidate elected, knowing that an all-in bet would have the highest possible pay-off." While I don't like Musk as a person, I respect his clarity on what's most important to him, and the focus he shows in following through on that clarity. That clarity and focus is what allows him to be remarkably effective on the things he cares about, which unfortunately does not include actual people.
- Democracy's New Operating System and The Courage to Debug Democracy, by Lexi Reese. I worked with Lexi at Google on one project, and respected her drive and integrity, so I have been following along with her (failed) effort to campaign to become a California senator. In these two essays, she reflects on what it says about our democracy that Trump could be elected - the first essay is her trying to explain to her daughter how that was even a possibility (her theory is that big tech has damaged our ability to connect in the pursuit of convenience), and she asks "how do we balance the genuine benefits of innovation with the preservation of democratic values?" The second essay points out how expensive it is to run for office, meaning that only famous or wealth people can do so, and Reese invites each of us to participate in changing that:
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Autocracy bets on concentration. Real democracy bets on expansion—of opportunity, expertise, and participation. Real democracy grows stronger in adversity, gaining power from each act of civic courage. The path to unleashing everyone's potential isn't through any single election—it's through our sustained commitment to stay engaged, no matter what tomorrow brings.
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I don't know what that engagement looks like for me, but I'll keep sharing in this space as I explore and learn.
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Thanks for reading! See you in a couple weeks!
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In these stressful times, sometimes it's important to step away from the screens and slow down in nature. The Ancient Oaks trail in Russian Ridge is one of my favorite hikes.
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This is the Too Many Trees newsletter, where I share what I’ve been writing and reading in the realm of leadership and personal development. My executive coaching practice is centered around the idea that we are more effective in moving towards our goals when we become more conscious and intentional in focusing our time and attention, and learn how our unconscious patterns are holding us back. If you know somebody that could benefit from my perspective, please forward this to them or let them know they can set up a free intro chat with me.
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