To repeat (one last time): For Democrats, and for anyone else who hoped to keep Trump out of the White House, November 5 was a crushing blow — both in terms of what it portends for the future of the Democratic Party and more generally for democracy itself. As the BBC wrote:

“Donald Trump swept to victory by chipping away at groups of voters which Democrats once believed would help them win the White House for a generation…’Demography,’ these left-wing optimists liked to say, ‘is destiny.’ Sixteen years later, however, that destiny appears to have turned to dust.”

The resistance takes shape…

Now, it’s time to move beyond lamenting the past — and toward preparing for the dangers that lie ahead. Unfortunately, Democrats are far from certain as to how best to proceed. As CNN wrote:

“In CNN’s conversations with two dozen top Democratic operatives and elected officials since Election Day, the fear isn’t just that no one knows the answer to what’s next – it’s that they don’t even know what the question is at this point.”

On a more optimistic note, there is an emerging Democratic consensus, as described in The New York Times, on what an “Anti-Trump Battle Plan” will look like.

And, as noted in USA Today: “The Donald Trump resistance is ready for when Democrats are done grieving.” Exactly what form Trump resistance will take remains a work in progress. One thing is clear: the old rules for opposing Trump and MAGA will not apply. This is not 2017. Trump 2.0 will be far worse and much more difficult — and risky — to navigate successfully.

…and so does the capitulation

That’s why one of the most troubling signs, as we begin the fight against the Trump agenda, is that people and institutions who actively fought against Trump in 2017 are now deciding to capitulate instead. Nowhere is this more evident than in the media.

Ominous warning shots appeared in the days before the election, when the publishers of The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post blocked intended endorsements for Kamala Harris — just before they were about to be printed. This was generally viewed as a shameful move to avoid a Trump retaliation, should he win. *

In the wake of the election, capitulations have begun to accelerate. Almost immediately, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski (of MSNBC’s Morning Joe) “went to Mar-a-Lago for a fence-mending meeting with President-elect Donald Trump.” It was widely panned as a sell out. Even staff within MSNBC viewed it as “a troubling early sign of capitulation to Trump. ‘Normalizing Trump is a bad idea,’ wrote Katie Phang.” **

A few days later, Comcast announced plans to “spin off its NBCUniversal cable TV networks, including MSNBC” within the next year. There is speculation that this could lead to the end of MSNBC altogether. Even worse: guess who half-joked that they might purchase the network? Elon Musk! [By the way, the ongoing right-wing takeover of mainstream media is very far from a joke. It’s happening.]

Of course, fears of retributions after Trump takes office are not unwarranted — as he has vowed revenge on his enemies, especially the media, on numerous occasions.

More generally, as The Guardian wrote a few days before the election:

“A lot has changed since 2016 – including the increasingly conservative bent of the US supreme court after three Trump appointees. If Trump is elected in November, the laws that protect news organizations might crumble or be weakened.” “Donald Trump poses a clear threat to journalists, to news organizations and to press freedom in the US and around the world.”

The Brookings Institute similarly asked:

“Donald Trump has threatened to shut down broadcasters, but can he?”

The answer: Possibly, yes. “A president of the United States already has powers beyond coercing the FCC. These powers could be exercised not only against broadcasters, but also against those who operate the internet.”

So some prudence is justified. The question is how much and in what way. What we are now seeing is too much and in the wrong way. ***

Not surprisingly, capitulation extends beyond the media. Eight years ago, Democratic governors were more than willing to do battle with Trump. Now, not so much. As Politico wrote:

“Dems’ new Trump resistance strategy is ‘Playing nice.’ As Democratic governors game out how to deal with a second Trump administration, one thing is clear: It’s not 2016 anymore. Governors face a more politically sophisticated version of Donald Trump, and are calculating that they need to choose their battles more carefully — and find ways to cooperate — after their anti-Trump strategy led to a nationwide shellacking.”

In the months ahead, I expect the list of left-wing capitulators to continue to grow.

In other words, if you are someone who remains determined to fight the Trump agenda, you may find yourself increasingly isolated as the people and organizations you’ve counted on as allies succumb to the fear of and pressure from the Trump White House.

In case you are still unclear as to what this all means: This is the beginning of how democracies end.

A starting point

Yes, it can be disheartening to watch these capitulations and realize that a huge swath of this country not only seems unconcerned about Trump’s promised retributions…they are positively enthusiastic at the prospect. But let’s not forget that, while Trump won the election, more than half of the country (75 million people!) did not vote for Trump (with the latest count, Trump’s vote total is now less than 50%!). There are a whole lot of people out there who are on our side — who oppose Trump and understand the danger he represents. This is a starting point to counter any sense of isolation and to instead join the resistance.

_____________________

* Update December 5: The situation at The Los Angele Times is far worse than I realized at the time this column was first posted. Harry Litman lays it all out here, making it clear that he “doesn’t want to continue to work for a paper that is appeasing Trump and facilitating his assault on democratic rule for craven reasons.”

** Update December 6: The situation on Morning Joe has gotten worse since this column was first posted. David Frum describes how he was “excused” from the show (and will likely never appear on MSNBC again) for a rather mild critical comment he made about Pete Hegseth and Fox News. Shortly afterward, co-host Mika Brzezinski read an apology for his remarks. Frum continues: “It is a very ominous thing if our leading forums for discussion of public affairs are already feeling the chill of intimidation and responding with efforts to appease.”

More generally, Marc Elias has echoed the sentiments expressed here, writing: “”What has surprised me, depressed me and ultimately angered me are the voices that have gone silent. So many who were so loud in warning about the dangers of Trump now speak only in whispers if at all. The critics who were bold and brash when they thought Harris would win are now tamed and seeking accommodation. Media figures who claimed to be the bastion of protection for our democracy now make pilgrimages to temper Trump’s anger.”

*** Update December 16: Yet another bowling pin falls. This time ABC News capitulates…making a $15 million settlement in a court case that Trump brought against the network and where ABC would have likely prevailed. It involves statements made by George Stephanopoulos  during an interview with Senator Nancy Mace — regarding a court’s finding in the E. Jean Carroll lawsuit that “Donald Trump has been found liable for defaming the victim of rape by a jury.” Trump claimed he was defamed. It’s a win for Trump that he does not deserve…and allows him to avoid what would have been an embarrassing deposition. If Trump were not President-elect, the settlement would almost certainly never have happened. To read all the gory details, check out this column by Harry Litman.

Even as Election Day recedes in the rear view mirror, I continue to survey the wreckage.

There is not just one reason Kamala Harris lost the election. But some things mattered more than others. Much more.

In particular, Kamala Harris — and the Democrats in general — did not lose the election because of mistakes her campaign made (too conservative or too progressive; I’ve heard both). And it was not because of inflation, illegal immigrants, racism, misogyny, Gaza, elitism, identity politics or any of the other usual suspects. I am sure some of them contributed to her loss. But they were not determinative causes.

In fact, all of those potential causes are largely irrelevant. They should not have mattered — because Trump should never have had even the slightest chance of winning in the first place. In a sane world, he would have never even gotten the nomination. 

Harris lost because of the huge numbers of people who were willing to overlook Trump’s obviously disqualifying attributes — and vote for him anyway. People decided they were okay with voting for a convicted criminal, a rapist, a fraud, a con man, an inveterate liar — and someone guilty of attempting to overthrow an election leading to a violent insurrection — and all the rest (as I’ve detailed in previous columns, starting with this one). Under any other circumstances in American history, Trump’s baggage would have been way more than enough to end his political career — in an instant. Period. But not this time. This time he had the full backing of the GOP and went on to win the Presidency. The key question then becomes WHY? Why were so many voters willing to give Trump a pass he did not deserve?

Back in July, many people said they couldn’t support Biden, even though they voted for him four years ago and generally liked him, because of his obvious and serious mental decline. Ultimately, that’s what led to his withdrawal. Trump should have faced a similar reckoning — in spades — due to his moral, ethical and legal failings. Even people who supported him at one point should have said the bar is now too high for them to get over it. But they didn’t. Again, the question is WHY?

One key answer, as detailed in a The New Republic article, is the dominance of right-wing media:

“Today, the right-wing media sets the news agenda in this country.”

“I think a lot of people who don’t watch Fox or listen to Sinclair radio don’t understand this crucial chicken-and-egg point. They assume that Trump says something and the right-wing media amplify it. That happens sometimes. But more often, it’s the other way around. These memes start in the media sphere, then they become part of the Trump agenda.”

“To much of America, by the way, this is not understood as one side’s view of things. It’s simply ‘the news.’ This is what people—white people, chiefly—watch in about two-thirds of the country.”

On Fox News and other right-wing outlets, viewers never heard about the extent of or legitimate basis for Trump’s legal problems. When told, for example, that Trump had been held liable for sexual assault, a common reaction among his supporters was to express disbelief: “That can’t be true.” At best, viewers were told a lie: that Trump’s legal problems were all the result of Democratic “lawfare” — the Biden administration and a weaponized Justice Department targeting Trump. Trump was portrayed as the victim rather than the culprit. When that is the only story you hear on the “news” — not just from partisan ads, but from what you likely view as unbiased reporting — you not surprisingly come to believe it. So you wind up giving Trump a pass.

[A related effort was a $45 million disinformation ad campaign created by political advisers to Tesla founder Elon Musk, designed to suppress votes for Harris. Once again, to the extent this was successful (and it seemed to be, as the Democratic vote was down several million from what it was in 2020), the success was based on falsehoods that came to be believed.]

Here’s one other recent example: As reported by NPR, the right-wing media successfully convinced millions of Americans that FEMA (and thus indirectly Harris and Biden) was failing in their effort to help victims of Hurricane Helene. It was all a lie. But it worked.

“Rumors, misinformation and lies about the federal government’s response to Hurricane Helene in the southeastern United States have run rampant since the storm made landfall, especially around funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The claims have become so widespread that FEMA set up a response page to debunk many falsehoods around how disaster funding works and what the agency’s response has been.”

So how do we break the stranglehold right-wing media have on the news and the people who consume it? How do we stop the massive spread of lies? I honestly don’t know; but people are working on it. If we can’t come up with an answer, Democrats’ efforts to regain power is likely doomed to fail — no matter what else they do. Many Democrats are hoping to capitalize on an expected backlash to Trump’s policies — as the policies inevitably fail to produce the promised results. Maybe that will happen. But it seems more likely that a backlash, if one even occurs, will not lead to defections from Trump supporters. Instead, Fox News and related media will claim that any troubling news is all due to Democrats and their efforts to block what Trump is trying to do. Or something like that. It will be a lie. But people will believe it. Because the right-wing media control the narrative in politics today. And MAGA will succeed in the midterms — just as they did this past election. And this will continue to repeat — unless and until we find a counter to the right-wing media dominance. I am not holding my breath.

Update: November 21: It turns out that that giving a pass to Trump’s past behavior may be the lesser of two mistakes voters made this election. The greater error was underestimating — or outright dismissing — the future harm he is now posed to wreak. It’s already begun — with Trump’s cabinet nominations. And the consequences, as outlined by Timothy Snyder (author of On Tyranny), are likely to be devastating. Here’s a quote:

“Taken together, Trump’s candidates {for cabinet positions etc.} constitute an attempt to wreck the American government…It is a mistake to think of these people as flawed.  It is not they will do a bad job in their assigned posts.  It is that they will do a good job using those assigned posts to destroy our country…And citizens, regardless of how they voted, need now to check their attitudes.  This is no longer a post-electoral moment.  It is a pre-catastrophic moment.”