How will we cope if Trump (or Harris) wins?

What if he wins again?

And if you’re Puerto Rican, Black, Mexican, Asian, Haitian, a woman, a member of the LGTBQ community, a journalist, a Philadelphian, a Democrat, or even Beyoncé or Taylor Swift, I don’t even have to tell you who “he” is.

If you’ve been the target, directly or indirectly, of the slurs, invective, and insults of Donald John Trump as he’s burnished his political brand over the past nine years — and that list includes just about everyone except (checks notes) white men, the insurrectionists of Jan. 6, 2021, and the leaders of autocratic regimes around the world — the only thing more painful than Trump’s 2016 election victory is the possibility that he might reclaim the White House a second time.

So many of us were caught off guard on Nov. 9, 2016 — the morning after the election.

We were ill-prepared, at best, to cope with the cataclysmic political shift that has left deep scars — on Americans and American norms, but also on the ideals and institutions that define our country, and our very democracy.

And now, here we are again — with a much less closeted and much more aggrieved and angry group of sycophantic supporters and surrogates excusing their dear leader’s endless depths of depravity:

“He doesn’t mean it.”

“He’s not talking about us, he’s talking about them.”

“It’s a joke.”

The joke’s on us — because we are all them. We are all eventually them to someone like him.

I recently reread the column I wrote the night of the 2016 election and was struck by how familiar it felt. Millions of our fellow Americans, I wrote then, were willing to overlook and embrace the xenophobia and racism and sexism and misogyny to send some sort of twisted hateful message.

Even for those of us who tried to steel ourselves against what could come, the moment was no less gutting.

This time, I want to be ready. As voters prepare to head to the polls Tuesday, I’ve been spending the past couple of weeks talking to people — both experts and the everyday folks who’ve been the targets of Trump’s venom — to find out how we might best begin to cope with the possibility of a Trump 47 presidency.

I have no doubt that supporters of both Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are feeling anxious. But, using history as a guide, it’s fair to say that only one group of supporters is worried about whether come January we’ll have an inauguration or an insurrection — or maybe even something worse.

In May, 73% of American adults said they were stressed about the 2024 election, in a poll from the American Psychiatric Association — and that stress is felt among all political affiliations. Most said the election is a significant source of stress (76% of Democrats, 67% of Republicans, and 64% of independents).

But if Tuesday’s vote goes a certain way, these feelings of fear and anxiety — which many experts characterized as grief — will be rekindled.

When I heard that, I knew immediately that the first person I needed to talk to was Nelba Márquez-Greene, because of her singular expertise in the intersection of grief, injustice, and mourning, and their impact on individuals and institutions.

Márquez-Greene’s 6-year-old daughter, Ana Grace, was among the 20 children and six adults killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., in 2012. She is also a licensed marriage and family therapist and Yale School of Public Health’s activist in residence whose lived experience has taught her how widespread and misunderstood grief is.

Márquez-Greene offered three tips on how to cope.

First, she told me, we have to take care of ourselves — and that means not putting off addressing our physical, mental, and emotional health. In order to stand against whatever comes next, we have to be of sound mind, body, and soul.

Second, “we need to control who enters and exits the inner folds of our heart” — in other words, not everyone deserves to hear, or will be sympathetic to, our pain. Many of us feel betrayed by friends and family, and so we have to find supportive communities, whether in person or online. We are always stronger together.

Third is to remember that even in our darkest hours, there is another generation to consider.

Márquez-Greene shared the story of how, following the shootings at Sandy Hook, she came back home from the firehouse where she, her husband, and other victims’ families gathered to hear the news that their loved ones were killed. Even in her grief, she recognized that she not only had to share the news with her son Isaiah but also consider how her own response would serve as a model for how he might begin to process it.

“I was going to have to, despite my own pain, understand that there were people I was responsible for and that the only way I was going to be able to do that well and honorably is by taking care of myself,” she said.

Without that, “Our young people that we’re responsible for, our communities that we’re responsible for, won’t have from us what they need.”

As much as I’ll keep what Márquez-Greene said in mind, I also won’t forget the many conversations I had with others in the days leading up to the election. (A note to the trolls: I didn’t ask anyone which candidate they supported — so if you have anything nasty to say ... say it to my face.)

There was my conversation with the Rev. Mark Kelly Tyler, who before recently becoming the historiographer for the African Methodist Episcopal Church was the longtime pastor of the denomination’s founding church. The past, he told me, must always inform the present. “It’s not the first time that, in Black America, we’ve been disappointed by the electoral process,” he said. “In fact, historically we’ve been disappointed more than we’ve been able to cheer and to celebrate, and in those moments, we’ve also known that some of our best work, our best organizing, our best resisting, has happened in those kinds of moments.”

Then there was my conversation about the healing power of nature with Brad Maule, a photographer who grew up in a central Pennsylvania mountain town and has worked with several outdoor organizations in Philadelphia. It can be hard to remember, but even the worst storms eventually pass.

Iresha Picot, a licensed behavioral therapist and the founder of Black Girl Joy Bike Ride, advised that no matter what challenges arise out of elections or our everyday lives, we need to find “pockets of joy.”

And Elicia Gonzales, a queer Latina activist who has led several organizations that serve marginalized communities, and who now works for 22nd Century Initiative, an anti-authoritarianism group working to build a people-powered democracy. No matter the setbacks or successes, she reminded me, we must remain connected with the people and organizations tirelessly working toward a more just world for everyone.

I will also hold onto the conversations about the power of stories and storytelling (and the must-have lists of book recommendations) from Aidan Melinson, a recent college graduate and bookseller for booked. bookstore in Chestnut Hill, and Lisa Moser, a multilingual Philadelphia native and bookstore manager at Julia de Burgos Bookstore at Taller Puertorriqueño in Fairhill. Start with Puerto Rico: A National History by Jorell Meléndez-Badillo and Democracy in Retrograde: How to Make Changes Big and Small in Our Country and in Our Lives by Emily Amick and Sami Sage.

And here’s to Resa Mueller — a Filipina bartender and general manager at R&D Cocktail Bar who was born in Hong Kong and lived all around the world before settling in Philadelphia — for her tasty postelection potions: a freezer martini, because weird times call for a ready-made drink, and a mock piña colada because even if we can‘t physically escape to a tropical paradise somewhere, we can at least sip on something that makes us feel like we’re sitting under a coconut tree.

I’m grateful for them all — even as the best advice came with the challenges of our new reality.

In so many ways, these are unprecedented times, but perhaps there is some comfort in remembering they are not altogether new.

Following Abraham Lincoln’s election on Nov. 6, 1860, a woman from Alabama, Sarah Espy, turned to her diary to document her concerns. She felt “grieved,” she wrote, and if the Southern states withdrew from the Union, “it is the beginning of woe.”

I’m not a religious person, but as the aphorism goes, there are no atheists in a foxhole, and we can all use all the prayer we can get.

So, I asked the Rev. Tyler if he might recommend a piece of Scripture he thought might help us cope with whatever lies ahead — because if 2020 should have taught us anything, it’s that any victory is short-lived.

Tyler, the pastor of Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church near Sixth and Lombard Streets, pointed me to a verse from Ephesians: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”

Scripture can be read in all kinds of ways, but here’s what I hope resonates the loudest: This isn’t a battle against just one man or one party or one movement, but of a spirit of hate and ignorance and cruelty that takes on many forms.

“It’s about trying to overcome that particular spirit,” he said.

We have a long road ahead, and while breathing and communing with nature is necessary, and a good book and even the good word can comfort and even empower, the struggle can’t end there, because that won’t help our transgender daughters and transgender nephews, or a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipient, or a woman who needs an abortion facing the prospect of a nationwide ban.

And let‘s face it: The challenges won’t end with a win by Harris. Should she emerge victorious on Tuesday, hers will be a historic administration, but not a perfect one. So we’ll need to hold her accountable, too.

But the energy around her campaign has seemed to be rooted in a central theme we should all embrace:

When the fundamental values of the nation are under threat, we must act.

We can be anxious and afraid, we can be disappointed and disgusted, and we can be utterly exhausted — but then we have to continue the work.

I thought of that as I watched Kimberly Burrell, a woman I recently wrote about, respond to being featured in a Trump attack ad — even though she is a lifelong Democrat who plans to vote for Harris.

Burrell was understandably furious, and at a news conference last month, she implored Trump to push the right-wing political action committee that created the ad to take it down.

But then, she went about registering people to vote and continuing her gun violence prevention work in her community where her 18-year-old son was gunned down in 2009.

I was also reminded of a patch a friend created last year with the word “Trying” as he found himself in a position many of us are in: trying to dig ourselves out of some of the most disruptive and divisive moments of many of our lifetimes.

I’d lost track of my patch in a drawer, but I recently dug it back up again because it feels like the best advice we can give ourselves and each other going forward.

Whatever happens, we must never stop trying.