November 5 was disappointing, but not a surprise. It's certainly not like 2016, where the result did catch me by surprise. This time, I took a wait-and-see attitude. Two weeks before the election, I told someone struggling to be optimistic that "the most I can offer is what keeps me from despair. The odds are pretty much 50/50. That's not a reason to be optimistic, but it's equally not a reason to be pessimistic."
Now that the results are in, and Donald Trump's win over Kamala Harris is certain, it's time for despair. Hear me out.
I fear, on the domestic front, the gutting of women's rights, civil rights, health care benefits, retirement benefits, investments in clean energy, workers' rights, consumer rights, protections of the environment, and what progress we've been making in fighting climate change. I fear on foreign policy that Ukraine is f*cked, that Europe will now have to face the Russian bear with no one protecting its back, that the world may descend into a global tariff war with China that will impoverish us all. I fear that our system of government will not survive the corruption and lawlessness of a Trump presidency emboldened by the Supreme Court with a grant of immunity. Those are just a few of my fears. Despair is not too strong a word.
Historical parallels? The closest parallel I can think of to what happened November 5, 2024, is January 30, 1933, when Adolf Hitler led his party to an electoral win and was appointed Chancellor of Germany. No one thought what happened next in Germany could ever happen, yet it did. If that historical parallel stiffens our resistance today, and if that resistance lessens the chance of us repeating history, it will be a good thing.
There, I did it. I raised a comparison with Hitler. Ever since 1990, when Godwin's Law was first promulgated, I've believed in this corollary: in online discussion groups, there is a "tradition that, when a Nazi or Hitler comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever made the comparison loses whatever debate is in progress." But Trump has made Godwin's Law no longer operative.
How does this all play out? Here's a worst-case scenario. Trump creates chaos which provokes a crisis so serious that the public, misled by lies and misinformation, is unable to decide who is responsible and demands that a dictator arise and take charge and "fix it." Trump will offer himself. That's what happened in Berlin in the 1930s. That's also how the democratic Roman Republic died and was replaced with an all-powerful emperor. Can't happen here? Maybe it's already playing out and we just don't know it yet. The pieces are all in place. Do you trust Trump to show restraint? I don't.
Don't worry about this temporary bout of despair. When it passes, it will be time to roll up our sleeves and work to preserve our republic, our voting rights, women's rights, economic justice, environmental protection, diversity, equity, and inclusion, despite these things being turned into dirty words by the far right along with previously rejected concepts like tolerance, compromise, and civility. All aided and abetted by 75 million of our fellow Americans who willingly and knowingly gave him the power.
Are there any highlights of the election? Ironically, it's that Trump received 51% of the total vote, the first time in three tries that he's won a majority of the vote. Why is that a good thing? Because it's not a healthy democracy when a candidate who can't win a majority of the vote can still win the Presidency. That's happened twice already in the 21st Century after not happening at all for 125 years before that. I hope it never happens again. And I hope Donald Trump himself goes down in history as a narrow escape from the Fall of the American Republic.
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