We must not delude ourselves in this moment. Multiracial democracy in the United States is less than 60 years old. It has always been contested, often violently so. It has always been fragile. Since this nation's inception large swaths of white Americans -- including white women -- have claimed a belief in democracy while actually enforcing a white ethnocracy. In the face of shifting demographics where white Americans will lose their numeric majority, we see a growing embrace of autocracy to keep the "legitimate" rulers of this country in power. History teaches us that we are in a perilous moment.

We are already seeing the rationalizing of how we got here and the blaming of the political party that, though flawed, actually reflects multiracial democracy. We must resist this. Voters knew exactly who Trump was and chose him anyway. This is not about the so-called excesses of the left. As the NYT editorial board writes, Trump ran the "most racist, sexist, and xenophobic campaign in modern history." As NYT reporter Lisa Lerer wrote today, "This was a conquering of the nation not by force but with a permission slip. Now, America stands on the precipice of an authoritarian style of governance never before seen in its 248-year history." This is the unsparing truth that we must confront.

Black Americans vote like they vote not because they align with every single Democratic policy but because they understand this country with a clarity that can be challenging for people who have not had to live under apartheid in the U.S., who’ve never known what it’s like NOT to be able to cast a ballot, not to have rights of citizenship, not to be protected by this nation’s laws. Black Americans know American fascism because they lived under it — and that understanding overcomes any other policy choices that they might otherwise vote on. Black people uniquely understand this nation, and how awful it can get.