No, our democracy hasn’t ended—but it will if we surrender to Trump
It's again on us!
An email arrived in my inbox this morning from a friend with the subject line, “So it’s over.” When I opened the email, I was met with this jarring first line: “I know I am not along in this thinking, but I probably just voted in my LAST election.” Later in the email my friend explained more of what he meant, “Any elections going forward will be for demonstration purposes only,” adding, “They will mean nothing so why waste my time.”
My friend is correct in that he’s not alone in holding this sentiment. I’ve seen that expressed on social media today along with a fatalistic attitude that we are doomed.
I have too much respect for you to offer up some feel-good bromide or a lighthearted fortune cookie type philosophy about how it’s all going to be okay. I sincerely don’t know if will be okay. This isn’t a Hollywood movie. The good people don’t always prevail. And history tells us that democracies do, in fact, die.
What I can say with great certainty is that if we all check out and allow Trump and his right-wing allies to do what they want with no push back—be it protests to pressing our Democratic elected officials to speak out loudly—this democratic experiment will end. And that means our self-determination as a people ends. Like women in 14 states where Republicans have passed total abortion bans, we will all lose the ability to make decisions about what is in our best interest.
Like many of you, I truly did expect Donald Trump to be defeated. I simply couldn’t believe that enough of our fellow Americans would vote for a man who was convicted of 34 felonies for cheating in the 2016 election, who was adjudicated a rapist, is charged with felonies for attempting a coup, who incited the Jan 6 attack and vowed to pardon the MAGA terrorists who brutally beat up police officers.
Add to that Trump told all who would listen during this campaign of his anti-democratic aspirations from using military force against his political opponents who he dubbed the “enemy within” to shutting down media outlets that were critical of him. Trump also repeatedly demeaned women from VP Harris to Nancy Pelosi while in between cruelly mocking people like 84-year-old Paul Pelosi who was badly injured when he was struck in the head with a hammer by a Trump supporter.
True, the crowds at Trump’s rallies cheered those comments and gleefully laughed as Trump cruelly belittled people. But still I held out hope that the rest of our fellow Americans would never support a man who engaged in such conduct. Yet they did.
The exit polls give us a sense of the coalition Trump built. The foundation was white people without a college degree of which Trump won nearly 70% of the men and more than 60% of the women. (Harris won white men and white women with a college degree.) And Trump did far better with people of color in this election. While Harris won Latino voters, one of the story lines emerging is Trump did far better than in 2020 with that community. Overall, nearly 20% of Trump’s votes came from communities of color compared to only 13% in 2016.
But this is not about how Trump performed slightly better with certain groups. In my view, the only reason Trump was even on the ballot was because of three key factors:
1. Corporate media normalizing Trump to make more of a profit. This is an issue I’ve long railed against in articles about how corporate media executives helped normalize Trump after Jan 6 because he was good for revenue. In the short term, Trump offered them better TV ratings and clicks on articles. And if he won again, it would mean tax cuts, less regulations and an administration that would be very open to corporate mergers. The Biden administration has been famously difficult to proposed mergers in an effort to protect consumers over corporations.
2. Attorney General Merrick Garland’s inexcusable failure to swiftly prosecute Trump after Jan 6. This is an issue I have been screaming about since mid-2021. In January 2022, I wrote an article for MSNBC.com imploring Garland to move more quickly. The reason was that Garland’s failure to charge Trump promptly both helped normalize him and undermined the seriousness of the crimes Trump committed to remain in power despite losing. As I wrote in that article, if Garland failed to swiftly prosecute Trump and Trump won in 2024, historians would look back on his failure as one of the key reasons our democratic Republic ended.
3. The depravity of the GOP. After Jan 6, the Senate could’ve convicted Trump and ended any chance for him to run again. While seven Senate Republicans did join with Senate Democrats voting to convict, more than 40 other Republicans voted to protect Trump. From there, some of the same Republican leaders who had denounced Trump after Jan 6, went on to vocally praise him during his 2024 run for the GOP nomination. And of course, there is the GOP controlled Supreme Court which has protected Trump from accountability.
Other reasons played a role in VP Harris’s loss. Most notably was the sexism, racism, and misogyny, only being the candidate for a little over 100 days, the war in Gaza and corporate media doing all they could to help Trump.
But despite all that, I was hopeful that Harris would prevail. I was wrong. And Trump looks posed to be the first Republican in 20 years to win the popular vote.
Some debate what Democrats did wrong. Others debate why would so many Americans support Trump. But where there can be no debate is what happens if we check out for good.
Taking a break and recharging is essential. But what is essential for our Republic to continue is that after that much needed respite, we return to the political battlefield. If not, historians will write that one of the key failures that led to the end of the American democratic experiment was the opposition in essence surrendering to Trump.
I leave you with an excerpt from Winston Churchill’s famous speech delivered in the House of Commons in June 1940 as World War II was ravaging the European continent. This speech inspired me when were first confronted with a Trump presidency after he won in 2016. It’s just as fitting and moving today:
“Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”
You’re right, we have to keep fighting. I’m so terrified right now, especially as a woman, even though I’m in a blue state, I’m concerned that won’t make a difference. Thank you for your piece. I’m just blown away that hate won, I hope we get through this intact and whole as a country. The electoral college needs to be abolished just like slavery. I’m so scared we’re looking at the beginning of Hitler’s fourth reich, I still can’t believe this happened. How do we move forward?
I cant stop crying