Felix Clary
ICT + Tulsa World
TULSA, Okla. – In tribal administrative offices and in the homes of Indigenous people from Alaska to Florida, many Native people awoke the day after Tuesday’s election to find what they had feared: the election of former president Donald Trump.
Feelings of fear and uncertainty experienced by many Native people during the president-elect’s first term in office returned, and Native leaders and individuals expressed those feelings on social media and elsewhere.
But not all Native people were concerned about Trump’s re-ascension. Indeed, Trump appeared to have earned the votes of many Native people this year, a fact not lost on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women advocacy group Not Our Native Daughters, which questioned the decision by so many Native voters to support the former president.
At least one organization expressed frustration at barriers faced by Native voters.
Margaret Faliano, IllumiNative’s associate director of advocacy and engagement, said Native people faced more barriers this year to get to the polls than she expected.
“I’m disappointed,” she said. “We have been doing get-out-the-vote efforts for the Native Vote campaign. … We’ve been doing phone training for poll workers, training on how to really exert your rights going to the polls, how to use a tribal ID, all of those things.”
Faliano gave an example of Natives struggling to vote in Arizona on election night.
“Folks were driving up to 200 miles to get to their local polling stations, and at the polling stations, they didn’t have enough ballots, or their systems were down, or they closed early, and people were in line up to like 9 p.m. and freezing in the cold.”
IllumiNative is a Native woman-led racial and social justice organization dedicated to increasing the visibility of, and challenging the narrative about, Native peoples. The organization received rapid-response requests from Native Arizona voters for food and blankets at the polls.
Faliano said Arizona was one of the key states in 2020 that helped Former President Joe Biden secure his victory, and was disappointed in Native voter suppression due to complications at the poll sites.
“With President Trump’s second office we don’t know exactly what the future will hold, but we can look at the past to see what Trump’s record of policies that vastly reduced environmental protections at the federal level,” Faliano said. “We saw federal laws like the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act weakened during Trump’s first term, when these had enabled tribes to give input around projects regarding their ancestral land.”
She said in his first term Trump enacted his America First Energy Plan, which expedited controversial projects like the Dakota Access and Keystone Access pipelines. Native communities broke out in protest over the pipelines, and Faliano said the opposition by Native nations was “monumental and sustained.”
She also worries that national monuments, like Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, could be at risk, as it was “reduced by about 85 percent” during Trump’s first term. The Biden administration worked to restore the boundaries of Bears Ears, which is considered sacred to several tribes.
Trump’s support of fossil fuel projects could also impact tribal lands.
“These are projects that are just likely to deepen the mining crisis, which harms Indigenous people disproportionately, as well as the fact that programs that man camps and mining brings to the reservation could exacerbate the MMIP (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons) crisis,” said Faliano.
In Picher, Okla., on the Quapaw Nation reservation, mining companies created dangerous sinkholes while mining for ore used for ammunition during WWI and WWII. Those companies also left thousands of tons of chat piles, lead and zinc, on the surface, which have made the town uninhabitable. The Quapaw Nation has been working for over a decade to clean up their land.
“In the Trump administration, they don’t really have a plan to engage Indian Country,” Faliano said. “Whereas, that transition team for the Harris/Walz administration had appointed Jade Begay, who is a very well known advocate in the Native nonprofit space, in the Native organizing space, and all those things in between.”
On a local and state level, tribal leaders saw victories and losses on election night. Jason Salsman, spokesperson for the Muscogee Nation, was dispirited over the loss of Oklahoma Justice Yvonne Kauger.
“We’re disappointed that a reputable defender of tribal sovereignty, someone who spearheaded the Sovereignty Symposium, did not come through, but we are glad that Justices James Edmondson and Noma Gurich remain,” said Salsman.
Cherokee Nation Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. released a statement congratulating the victors and planning how to manage community needs during Trump’s second term: “As Principal Chief, I have worked with federal leaders on a bipartisan basis to advance the well-being of Indian Country, including during President-Elect Trump’s first term in office,” said Hoskin. “During and after the transition of presidential administrations, we will continue pressing the United States to honor its treaty obligations to Native peoples, respect our sovereignty and meet obligations to provide needed resources to tribal nations.”
Still others expressed indifference at Harris’ loss, said Osage licensed trauma therapist Marca Cassity (they/them).
“Some have expressed feeling disillusioned with all of the political candidates and parties and refrained from voting for Harris, as they disagree with her and the Biden administration’s approach to the horrific situation in Gaza,” Cassity said.
Two-Spirit community reactions
A majority of Cassity’s community, however, has expressed despair, as they often work with Two-Spirit individuals, they said. The Two-Spirit identity is both Native and queer, and most Two-Spirit people identify with the LGBTQIA+ community.
“There are a variety of responses I am hearing. Some Two-Spirit people are feeling stunned and in deep fear, some to the point of panic,” said Cassity.
They said Two-Spirit people feel their protection in the U.S. is “already so fragile,” and those who are transgender fear they “will lose their gender-affirming healthcare under the Trump administration that the Harris administration likely would have protected.”
Cherokee and Delaware tribal citizen Cray Bauxmont-Flynn of Tulsa, Okla., expressed concern that Native people and Two-Spirit people could be “marginalized again.”
Bauxmont-Flynn is the founder of the All-Nations Two-Spirit Society, which is hosting its 37th annual International Two-Spirit Gathering in Hinton, Okla., next week.
“We’ve done so much fighting and wanted to be heard. It seems like maybe three steps backwards, but we have to be adamant about our cause, our needs, our voices,” said Bauxmont-Flynn. “There are resources and organizations out there and individuals within the community that are here to help, just to be a sounding board or there for our community and individuals.”
What next?
Moving forward during a second Trump presidency, it will be important for Native and Two-Spirit people to focus on caring for their health and that of their communities, Cassity said.
“There are many unknowns coming our way. It will take time to see how things unfold, so there will be a deep need for self-care and community care,” they said.
“As a trauma therapist I encourage folks to deepen right now into fostering habits of whatever helps them to stay grounded, and centered spiritually, emotionally, and physically. The basics of eating healthy food, staying hydrated, slowing down and being aware of your surroundings. It’s important to co-create connections with trusted friends and family, as tensions can cause rupture in these relationships that folks need right now.”
Whether or not people continue to express their Two-Spirit identities outwardly, Cassity said, it is “still important to have spaces and relationships to retreat into at times for self-care, and to stay resourced in the coming days ahead.”
Bauxmont-Flynn said the Two-Spirit and Native communities should avoid being “inundated with the bad news or the negativity” and to “keep looking at the good news.”
“Tomorrow is another day,” he said. “You’re not alone in this. Join discussion groups and organizations. It may just take a little longer than expected. With any bad news, it can be inundated, but there’s always two sides. We just have to keep moving forward and charging ahead.”
The next step moving forward is to “mobilize and get more voters to Indian Country,” said Salsman. “There are all types of initiatives like IllumiNative, the NDN Collective, Rock the Native Vote. There’s national coalitions trying to be built to drum up support.
“At the end of the day, are we where we want to be? No. But I think there is a day to come that politicians on a national scale will have to concern themselves with the Native vote on election day,” he said.
Faliano said Native nations must continue organizing and demanding a seat at all tables where issues are being discussed that impact tribal communities.
“We’ve been here since before the first president. We will be here well after the Empire of the United States is around, and we will continue to organize and be grounded in Native values,” said Faliano.
Mental health resources
National Domestic Violence Hotline Native American Services
988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: Dial 988
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