The day after the 2024 election, singer-songwriter Ethel Cain shared her thoughts on the results online. Her Tumblr post and subsequent Instagram Stories became one of the most widely shared reactions to Donald Trump’s reelection, getting picked up by outlets like Rolling Stone and Billboard and viral X (formerly Twitter) accounts like @PopCrave and @PopBase.
“If you voted for Trump, I hope that peace never finds you. Instead, I hope clarity strikes you someday like a cap of lighting,” she wrote on Tumblr (in the since-deleted post), resonating with the tens of thousands who liked screengrabs of her words on X and Instagram. Though the indie musician called the U.S. a “loveless, disrespectful” nation when she continued her statement on Instagram, she ultimately concluded with a call to action: “This is still your country too,” she wrote, encouraging her followers to exchange the value of American individualism for community organizing.
