I started to write this essay on the eve of one of the most contentious elections in recent memory. Leading up to Election Day, November 5, the polls showed a very close race. The challenges between the candidates included the expected claims against their opponent versus their own credentials for the position, as well as promises to the electorate that are likely impossible to fulfill.
Well, election day has come and gone. The US will have a new President, the country’s 47th, Donald Trump. Our 50th Vice President, J.D. Vance, was previously quite critical of Trump, yet apparently swayed by Trump’s resilience and curiously faithful followers. They will be inaugurated January 20, 2025.
This Presidential election result is maddening. And I am having a very difficult time trying to understand the appeal of a man with little to no sense of leading our nation except for his own egoist aggrandizement, presumed superiority of thinking himself to be ‘the greatest’, and belief in a self-assigned entitlement of immunity. The scandalous disregard of others’ humanity –witnessed in his penchant to insult, ridicule, and bully at will and against anyone—and his shameful sense of superiority confounds, that is, it confounds any attempt to label his personal qualities (and his presumed qualifications for the position) as worthy of the country’s highest position of leadership.
Political commentator Jon Meacham, writing on Election Day, recognized the danger of a Trump rise before his win in 2016. In advance of the 2024 election results, Meacham wrote that now Trump is a genuine aberration in our history — a man whose contempt for constitutional democracy makes him a unique threat to the nation.” He notes, “No similar figure in American history has ever had such a strong grip on so many. To suggest otherwise diminishes the sense of urgency the moment requires.”[1] Though the Election is past, this moment is urgent. Our democracy is at stake. Remember the riots at the Capitol on January 6, 2021? Although that coup failed, today we stand at the threshold of a chaos marshalled by Trump’s exaggerated narcissism.
The New York Times Opinion Columnist Bret Stephens, also writing on Election Day, began his pre-results column with “Dear President-elect _______. … You owe your victory, as much if not more, to your opponent than you do to yourself. … Put bluntly, outside of your hard-core supporters, many if not most Americans dislike or distrust you and will not easily give you the benefit of the doubt.”[2] Again, pre-election, doubts swirled about the competence of each candidate: re: Harris, rising to the challenges facing the nation; and re: Trump, of fascism and something very close to bureaucratized tyranny. (Consider Project 2025, “The right wing wish list for another Trump presidency,” a prime example that will curb constitutional freedoms of speech, civil rights, educational curricula, immigration, and surveillance).[3]
These pre-Election musings were prescient. Not only will the nation groan under the weight of another Trump administration, but many will groan over energy policies and lost efforts at sustainability, loss of tax revenue from the wealthiest, non-subsidized healthcare, hurdles at border crossings, and an aggressive America First trade policy.[4] The Economist notes that “Today the risks are larger. And that is because Mr. Trump’s policies are worse, the world is more perilous and many of the sober, responsible people who reined in his worst instincts during his first term have been replaced by true believers, toadies and chancers.”[5]
In the meantime, an outstanding criminal case looms as President-elect Trump waits a ruling from Justice Juan Merchan on whether Trump’s criminal conviction should be overturned. Given the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity, two federal criminal cases by Special Council, and a state criminal case in Georgia, where Trump attempted to overturn his 2020 loss to Joe Biden, immunity is a given, although he may be charged after he leaves office.[6] I suspect that many of us do not have confidence that anything resembling justice will prevail in this case or in Trump’s (presumed) service of and for the people who call the United States home.
Some commentators on the election consider this result a failure of the nation. Trump’s win and embrace of White supremacy is a dangerous step backward in the US’s work of correcting our past failures to recognize the dignity of every member of the human family.[7] The challenge before us is to remain steadfast in our work for justice while we remain committed to the ‘Promise of these United States’ that all people are created equal in the imago Dei. This equality includes those with whom we are at odds and whose positions are at counter purposes to the democratic principles. We must continue to support and trust The Organization of American States and its Secretariat for Strengthening Democracy in its “tripartite program of democracy promotion, good governance, and crisis prevention in the hemisphere [and globally].[8] In the meantime, it’s OK to be anxious, we just have to attend to self-care that includes ‘downtime’ from social media and replaced with activities that give us joy: visiting with family and friends, taking a long (or longer) walk with your dogs, and picking up that dusty guitar, plucking the strings, and singing out loud.
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Works Cited
Luc Cohen, “Judge to decide whether Trump’s hush money conviction can stand,” Reuters (November 10, 2024), https://www.reuters.com/world/us/judge-decide-whether-trumps-hush-money-conviction-can-stand-2024-11-10/
Alison Durkee, “What Supreme Court’s Immunity Ruling Means for Tump’s Second Term,” Forbes (November 12, 2024), https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2024/11/12/what-supreme-courts-immunity-ruling-means-for-trumps-second-term/.
The Economist, “A Second Trump term comes with unacceptable risks. If the Economist had a vote, we would cast it for Kamala Harris,” The Economist (October 31, 2024), https://www-economist-com.eu1.proxy.openathens.net/leaders/2024/10/31/a-second-trump-term-comes-with-unacceptable-risks.
Alexander Hecht and R. Neal Martin, “2024 Election Analysis,” ML Strategies (2024), https://www.mlstrategies.com/2024-election-analysis.
Jon Meacham, “I’m a Presidential Historian. This is My Biggest Regret about Trump,” The New York Times(Nov. 5, 2024), https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/05/opinion/donald-trump-regret.html?auth=login-google1tap&login=google1tap#.
Keith A. Owens, “Opinion: What if will take to survive a 2nd Trump presidency,” Detroit Free Press (November 13, 2024), https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2024/11/13/trump-president-mass-deportation-abortion-rights/76229598007/.
Bret Stephens, “To Who, It May Concern,” The New York Times (Nov. 5, 2024), https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/05/opinion/president-elect-harris-trump.html.
U.S. Mission to the Organization of American States, “Democracy Promotion and Human Rights” (2011), https://usoas.usmission.gov/our-relationship/policy-programs/democracy/#:~:text=The%20Democratic%20Charter%20defines%20the,independence%20of%20the%20branches%20of.
Mile Wendling, “Project 2025: The right-wing wish list for another Trump presidency,” BBC (11 September 2024), https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c977njnvq2do and the American Civil Liberties Union, “Project 2025, Explained,” https://www.aclu.org/project-2025-explained (2024, accessed 11-10, 2024).
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[1] Jon Meacham, “I’m a Presidential Historian. This is My Biggest Regret about Trump,” The New York Times (Nov. 5, 2024), https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/05/opinion/donald-trump-regret.html?auth=login-google1tap&login=google1tap#.
[2] Bret Stephens, “To Who, It May Concern,” The New York Times (Nov. 5, 2024), https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/05/opinion/president-elect-harris-trump.html.
[3] See, Mile Wendling, “Project 2025: The right-wing wish list for another Trump presidency,” BBC (11 September 2024), https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c977njnvq2do and the American Civil Liberties Union, “Project 2025, Explained,” https://www.aclu.org/project-2025-explained (2024, accessed 11-10, 2024).
[4] See Alexander Hecht and R. Neal Martin, “2024 Election Analysis,” ML Strategies (2024), https://www.mlstrategies.com/2024-election-analysis.
[5] The Economist, “A Second Trump term comes with unacceptable risks. If the Economist had a vote, we would cast it for Kamala Harris,” The Economist (October 31, 2024), https://www-economist-com.eu1.proxy.openathens.net/leaders/2024/10/31/a-second-trump-term-comes-with-unacceptable-risks.
[6] See Luc Cohen, “Judge to decide whether Trump’s hush money conviction can stand,” Reuters (November 10, 2024), https://www.reuters.com/world/us/judge-decide-whether-trumps-hush-money-conviction-can-stand-2024-11-10/ and Alison Durkee, “What Supreme Court’s Immunity Ruling Means for Tump’s Second Term,” Forbes (November 12, 2024), https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2024/11/12/what-supreme-courts-immunity-ruling-means-for-trumps-second-term/.
[7] See Keith A. Owens, “Opinion: What if will take to survive a 2nd Trump presidency,” Detroit Free Press (November 13, 2024), https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2024/11/13/trump-president-mass-deportation-abortion-rights/76229598007/.
[8] See the U.S. Mission to the Organization of American States, “Democracy Promotion and Human Rights” (2011), https://usoas.usmission.gov/our-relationship/policy-programs/democracy/#:~:text=The%20Democratic%20Charter%20defines%20the,independence%20of%20the%20branches%20of.