How these older voters who backed Harris are engaging in ‘quiet resistance’
CNN
Pat Levin, 95 years young, is wrestling daily with something new and depressing.
Pat Levin, 95 years young, is wrestling daily with something new and depressing. “It’s left me very afraid,” she said of the 2024 election. “Afraid of the future. Afraid of everything.” That Donald Trump will be president in her twilight is by far the biggest slice of Levin’s post-election funk. But there’s more: Democratic Sen. Bob Casey was defeated, as was her Democratic congresswoman, Rep. Susan Wild. Her first memories of politics are of Franklin Roosevelt, and Levin has lived through Vietnam, Watergate, the September 11 attacks and more. And yet this feels more significant, more threatening. “I want to fight,” Levin said in an interview last week. “I don’t want to fight. I think I have to. Because I think there’s no such thing as staying neutral. I think once you stay neutral, it’s the oppressor who wins and the oppressed who suffer.” Levin is a lifelong Democrat who wasn’t happy when Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush or George W. Bush won the presidency. But never did if feel like this. Her Republican neighbors tell her to relax, that it will all be fine. Levin trusts her instincts.