First published in Daily Maverick 168

For the past four years, my regular early morning yell of horror was released into my inner space as I would wake up and remember who was the president of the United States, and the most powerful man on Earth.*

It was especially difficult to go through that first day, 9 November 2016. Just as I woke up, the news emerged of my hero Leonard Cohen checking out of this planet, as though he knew what a mess it was soon to become. And then I saw the NYT prediction: Donald Trump had a 94% chance of becoming the next president. I called our then associate editor, Ranjeni Munusamy, who was in the US covering the 2016 election. We shared a quiet minute of shock. The thought of Trump and his transformed GOP controlling all levers of power of the world’s superpower was just … ghastly.

But I will never forget another detail of that call: the surround sound that enveloped us. A weird one, a true sonic extract of fear. It took me a while to realise where I had experienced it before. Now, indulge me for a few seconds please, as I explain it.

Of all the usually mildly entertaining Tom Cruise movies, Edge of Tomorrow stands out as a truly good sci-fi film. You should definitely watch it, but here’s the broad plot. Aliens attack Earth, Cruise defends Earth. Except this is a sort of Groundhog Day of sci-fi, and he gets to fight the nasty aliens every day, from the beginning.

On one of those days, he is especially unsuccessful, and the aliens are advancing through the River Thames towards the London pub into which Cruise’s character runs, defeated, to grab a last drink.

The sound in that pub, the hushed wave of resigned desperation that filled the room full of humans drinking it up, waiting to die … It was a primal, dense soup of all our fears packed in, the sound of fate approaching, mercilessly. Not loud, just terrifying. Just a simple This Is The End message.

That was the sound I heard in the space around Ranjeni as we spoke, and eventually composed ourselves enough to come up with articles for later in the day.

Over the years, fear melted away, replaced by puzzlement, incredulity and, ultimately, anger. It did not inoculate me from my morning inner screams, though.

Four years later, Trump’s presidential journey will soon be transformed into an appropriately massive wreck that might end up in Trump the Conman finally seeing the inside of the court of justice. In the coming months, and true to his character, he will try literally anything to remain in power, even if it means fomenting waves of violence.

Eventually, he will be out, though.

Millions around the world are not happy though with the election results, as it appears that the Senate will remain in GOP hands, as well as local legislatures, just in time for redistricting, which in itself is another massive headache.

Need we remind anyone that it is unrealistic to expect that the demise of Trump the President will mark the demise of Trumpism, and that we will all wake up on 21 January transformed back into the jasmine-scented Obama days type past.

Trump may be gone from the seat of power on that day, but the tens of millions who voted for him will still be there. And everything that made them susceptible to the epic, lowbrow bullshit that Trump spewed is still there.

Defeating Trumpism will take longer than you think you can bear. Possibly decades. Just remember South Africa’s own fight against State Capture and how hopeful we all were (except Richard Poplak, of course), circa February 2018. Almost three years later, State Capture perpetrators are still free, while we also had another debilitating scandal to contend with, the PPE tenders.

And while there are some breakthroughs, the pace of the fight against the ills that this shameful period brought upon South Africa is just too slow. And yet, as frustrating as it is, the counter-question is: Do we do nothing, then? It is too slow, you might say, and you’d be right.

But how do we get anywhere unless we are resilient and hopeful? For every moment of success and satisfaction, there are myriad days filled with pain, discomfort and disillusionment. We cannot forget about it; rather, we should embrace the setbacks and come back even more resolute and committed.

As a society and planetary community, we will not have a future unless we transcend these dark times. We have no choice.

This global fight will be long and terrifying. But we have to start somewhere. How about here and now? DM168

* With thanks to my other hero, Douglas Adams, and his legendary character Arthur Dent from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.