I think you are correct about all of this, including the importance of staying positive and putting one foot in front of the other. My short assessment is that the patriarchal dominance hierarchy is alive and well. The other is that people vote based on emotions and not by evaluation of actual data or evidence. What story feeds into pre-existing biases? I have a couple friends who are really lovely people who voted for Trump. They simply discount his character, his insanity, and his malice and instead see who they want to see. It’s kind of psychologically and sociologically fascinating if it weren’t so freaking dangerous.