Trump and his pet Elon (or is it Elon and his pet Trump?) have made their way to Washington DC this morning for a series of scowly meetings with the outgoing administration. While I should probably pay attention to the vivisection of the American government, I can’t really be bothered.
It’s been a week now and I’m still not over it. My days are fine, and busy, but I find myself accompanied at all times by a hard little ball of anxiety nestled in my stomach. Many of us felt this way last time, too, when our forty-seventh president defeated Hilary Clinton to become the forty-fifth. Eight years later, it somehow feels worse. Not because I’m as worried about the future as I was the last time around, although I remain very worried about the future, but because the American people can no longer claim ignorance about the sort of person we just elected. A bad person.
America just elevated a rapist, felon, conman, grifter, and liar to its highest office. Nine years ago, one could somewhat plausibly claim they did not know the truth about Donald Trump. That he is, at best, amoral. That he is, at best, far more interested in his personal fortunes than that of the nation he was elected to serve. That he is deeply, fabulously, almost lavishly corrupt. This time, however, all of this is known and yet we decided that Donald Trump is the right man for the job. Or, maybe it’s more accurate to say he’s the right man for the mob.
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Because that’s what the nation feels like in this moment. Not much better than a mob hellbent on retribution for years of wage stagnation, inflation, lost opportunities, and a hollowed-out working class. And who is to blame for these widespread social ills? Not the anti-union party, certainly. Not the party of laissez-faire capitalism.
Not even the Bill Clinton-era Democrats who pushed NAFTA through, believing that globalization would, eventually, rise all boats. No, the people targeted for retribution in this new administration are immigrants, trans people, the media, and women. “Your body, my choice” has become the new “f**k your feelings.”
That’s mob behavior—both the pitchfork-wielding kind and the “You’ve got a nice place here. Be a shame if something happened to it” kind. Trump has always fashioned himself as a mob boss. Last week, his mob agreed.
The reason I feel so badly a week on is because the election of Donald Trump is also the rejection of what I want to believe about America. I want my nation to be a refuge for those poor and huddled masses yearning to breathe free. I want my nation to be a place where everybody can express themselves in whatever way they see fit. I want it to be a place of kindness and generosity of spirit. I want different religions and languages and shades of skin.
I want the phrase “my fellow Americans” to include all of my fellow Americans. I want America to be a model for democracy’s power to bring people together for a common purpose, the purpose of forging a nation of, by, and for the people. All the people. I want it to be Reagan’s hokey city on a hill. Everything I want my country to be is every single thing my fellow Americans just voted to reject.
So many hot takes this past week about what the Democrats did wrong. That doesn’t interest me nearly as much as what the Republicans have done by surrendering their party to a fascist-in-training with the same rapidity the French gave up their nation to another authoritarian with a grudge against minorities.
The Hitler comparisons may be tired, but only because they’re so easy to make. When the language of the one mirrors the other; when blueprints for concentration camps are already being drawn up to house millions of immigrants to be rounded up; when an alliance is being forged with Russia to carve up a smaller nation; when the new president is apparently more concerned about “the enemy within,” than without… well, as the saying goes, when the jackboot fits, wear it.
I offer no recriminations against the inspiring Harris/Walz campaign. Nor do I offer any predictions about what a second Trump presidency will look like. I mean, I know it’s going to suck for a lot of people not named “Trump,” but the exact nature of that suckiness remains to be seen.
The best I think any of us who oppose the new administration’s agenda can hope for is that the familiar Trump chaos and incompetence stymies the worst of their plans. But I’m not optimistic. This time around, he’s surrounded himself with the billionaire tech bro caste. Whatever their faults, they’re industrious. And they don’t give a s**t about anybody but themselves. Ayn Rand is cumming in her grave.
So yeah, it feels bad. It feels bad because it is bad. We like to tell ourselves the story of American exceptionalism. This election should lay that nonsense to rest for all time. American exceptionalism is predicated on American greatness, which itself is predicated on the quality of its people. When the people of a nation choose to be governed by a man so obviously unfit to be president, I don’t need to question the man they elected. I’m content to question the people who did so.
Because if we selected a man so obviously unfit to govern, doesn’t that put into question the character of the American people as a whole? It does. The story Americans tell ourselves about ourselves needs to re-evaluated. Which means that America needs to be re-evaluated.
One of the reasons Barack Obama inspired so many is that he acknowledged the reality of our history while insisting that hope, and a belief in each other, will lead us to our better angels. Hope is what he sold. We bought it, and the nation thrived. Now we have, again, bought fear. Last time, it ended with a million dead Americans. This time, who knows? Will this time be better? The good news is that it’d be hard for it to be worse.
I know that I’ll get used to this feeling again. Just like I did last time. I know we’ll muddle through. What I don’t know is, at what cost? What does the American experiment look like four years from now? It’s a question that can be asked at the beginning of any new administration, I suppose. The Trump people seem to believe we will emerge freer and more prosperous. I agree that they will. My concerns are for the rest of us.
