Please explain to your granddaughter that although the unfair burden is not her fault, she will change things here and now by excelling in school. Systemic racism in education is deeply hidden from most people, and with the Project 2025 in place, it's likely to be even more whitewashed. By excelling, she is reversing the racist / classist goal of keeping middle and working class people of color suppressed by putting them at a disadvantage when they graduate from K-12 and college. To do well in a discriminatory system requires patience and intelligence, and I'm sure your granddaughter has learned those skills from you; just keep her positive on her journey through the education process.

As for the roots of the Trump victory, my take is that there was a combination of tribalism and self-interest at work, but not necessarily in the same people. A white woman who voted against abortion restrictions (the measures lost in 3 states, btw) was motivated by self-interest as a woman and in many cases a mother of daughters. But when white women voted for Trump, many of them (even those who opposed harmful abortion restrictions) were motivated by economic self-interest, even though their belief that a second Trump term would benefit them and their families economically was not necessarily grounded in reality. When racist white women (most of them not college-educated I believe) voted for Trump, they were also motivated by tribalism. When young white men (the Joe Rogan crowd) voted for Trump, they were likely motivated primarily by tribalism and secondarily by an inaccurate sense of economic self-interest, and thirdly by sexism / gender bias. When younger Black men and Hispanic men voted for Trump, I believe they were voting out of an inaccurate sense of economic self-interest, not tribalism, but gender bias was probably a factor for many young white men, regardless of racial identity. It was an uphill battle, but the Democrats and anti-Trump pundits . editorialists should have convinced voters that voting for Kamala Harris was the best way to protect their economic self-interest in the here and now, not just the indefinite future. There's no way to convince tribalists and racists to vote against irrational hatred, so screw them.