We saw it coming. America’s fascination with celebrity and wealth kept Donald Trump in the public eye even after he lost his bid for reelection. He stood at a lectern on the Ellipse with the White House as a backdrop and urged the crowd of his supporters to march to the Capitol, telling them he would join them, which turned out to be a lie.
The Secret Service refused to transport him to the Capitol, so he sat instead in the room adjoining the Oval Office watching television of the Jan. 6 insurrection, telling an aide who informed him that Vice President Mike Pence was under attack, “So what.”
In the almost four years since that day, Trump nurtured his grievances, convincing his supporters that he had been cheated out of a second term and that the Biden-Harris administration had weaponized the Justice Department to falsely accuse him of whatever wrongdoing the courts found him guilty of.
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His third nomination as the Republican standard bearer was about his own motivation to stay out of jail more than it was about the fate of the country.
His 2024 presidential election victory means a wholesale rearrangement of U.S. alliances with the prospect of Trump kowtowing to Putin, who he calls a “genius,” and breaking bread with Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea’s hermit kingdom, who Trump exchanged admiring letters with.
Forget Ukraine. Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, say that preserving the sovereignty of Ukraine is not in the U.S. national security interest. Putin can do “whatever the hell he wants to do,” Trump has said.
Forget climate change. Trump vows to “drill baby drill” even though America has is drilling a record amount. That’s one thing about authoritarianism and/or fascism, both of which Trump admires, it offers easy solutions to complex problems. “They broke it and I’ll fix it,” Trump says of whatever problem arises. He made enough people true believers to vote him back into power.
And now, his perceived opponents, his perceived enemies—for they are one and the same—will all pay. All the marginalized groups he has fostered hatred towards will have their lives even more brutalized. Women—well, he will protect them whether they like it or not, as he has vowed. After removing access to abortion care, what next?
Trump is back in power—nastier, more ruthless, and better organized with more dedicated, focused lieutenants, than before. America has voted for a lunatic, boundary-breaking authoritarian. Decent Americans, and the rest of the world, can only watch on in unnerved horror.
