After ten long years of fighting against Trump and everything he stands for, we have lost. Trump will become President of the United States. Again.
Did we somehow fail to make our case sufficiently? Or was too much of the country too walled off in their own dark fantasy to hear it? Either way, it no longer matters. Trump still won.
To have more than half the country elect a man who, as The New York Times said, is manifestly unfit for the office of President — it is nearly impossible for me to absorb and accept its implications. A convicted felon and fraud will now be running the country. David Frum, writing in The Atlantic, has made an excellent effort put it in perspective. Many others will surely follow.
“We must {now} learn to live in an America where an overwhelming number of our fellow citizens have chosen a president who holds the most fundamental values and traditions of our democracy, our Constitution, even our military in contempt.”
This is not an America that I recognize anymore.
This election was not a choice between two reasonable candidates who had differing policies and different visions for the future. It was a choice between a candidate who sought to protect our freedoms and our democracy and one that seeks to end them. Between one that values truth and compassion and one that revels in lies and grievance and revenge. Between a defender of our laws and one who has broken our laws — multiple times. Between a future where I could feel safe and secure that the Presidency is in competent hands and one where I fear the recklessness and chaos that lies ahead. And the voters looked at all of this —and chose Trump.
I am shattered.
The next four years will be exponentially worse than Trump’s first term…if only because he will be emboldened by the fact that the horribly vile and divisive campaign he ran actually got him back to the White House. And because he has learned that no matter what he does, no matter what laws or norms he breaks, he remains held unaccountable.
We can look forward to Trump carrying out many of the punitive and autocratic and destructive policies he promised. Things such as (to cite one recently quoted example) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. being in charge of the government’s health agencies. OMG! And, as a special bonus, Trump can now ensure that the Supreme Court remains with a conservative super-majority for at least a generation.
If we couldn’t prevent a Trump victory — despite all of our exhaustive efforts and despite all of the evidence of Trump’s “unfitness,” I don’t have much hope for anything changing any time soon. What can we do now that we haven’t already done — to no avail? If you’re waiting for the country to have a collective change of heart at some point — because they begin to see how bad a Trump second term will be — don’t count on it. Trump’s America is not an aberration; for now at least, it is who we are.
What is the proper response when you believe someone is a fascist and that person wins anyway? How do you continue to go about your normal business? How do you fight back? If you were living in Germany in the 1930’s, what would you have done to combat the rise of Hitler? Could you have done anything that would have altered the outcome? Almost certainly not. And how should that apply to what we do here now? I don’t have good answers to those questions. Certainly not any optimistic ones.
We are the victims of a political earthquake. Before we can move forward, we will need to pick up the pieces of the wreckage in front of us. It will take some time. Actually, the metaphor is imperfect. It’s worse than a single earthquake. The political tremors of this election will continue to reverberate for the next four years — at least.
Many of you will look at the wreckage and have the motivation to rebuild — and eventually return to the fray: “Americans who care about democracy have work to do.” I applaud you and your resilience. I wish you success. Nothing would please me more than to see you succeed. And, at some level, I know it is the right thing to do. Giving up only further strengthens Trump.
Yet…others may decide that enough is enough and it’s time to move on to somewhere or something else — while we still can. Sadly, that’s the direction I am heading. I feel too old to want to spend my remaining years fighting…to preserve a country where a majority clearly have no interest in being “saved”…and for a cause that has so spectacularly failed to achieve its fundamental goal.
I am shattered. I am done.
A brief follow-up:
Going forward, some self-reflection by Democrats is in order. This has been a humiliating defeat. In assessing the loss, it is not sufficient to point fingers only at our opponents. We must accept some of the blame for what happened (see this article if you need help here). If they expect things to change next time, Democrats must do more than fight harder. They’ll need to fight differently.
Another follow-up:
We were asking potential Trump voters — who were upset about the inflation-induced high cost of groceries and such — to make a decision: Were you going to let your inflation concerns determine your vote even at the cost of electing a President who — for moral, ethical, legal and competency reasons — was so clearly unfit to hold the office? Especially when inflation is currently down and Trump will never bring the price drops you hope to see?
The group’s answer, as we now know, was an emphatic: “Yes. That’s exactly what we will do.” Based on the shocking election returns, that portion of the electorate rejected this argument to an extent greater than anyone had predicted or even imagined possible.
We were either unable to convince voters that Trump was the existential threat that we surely know he is — or the voters were telling is that they didn’t care whether he was or not.