Despair Is Not an Option

In recent months, the presidential campaigns were all-too-compelling distractions. Now that Donald Trump has won and Republicans look likely to control Congress, with a Supreme Court of soulmates watching on, we are forced to contemplate a disturbing future.

Commentators write reams trying to explain How Donald Trump, a vulgar man and habitual liar who happily whips up violence and casually casts racial and misogynistic slurs, could be our President-elect. Biden’s clinging to office, inflation, an influx of immigrants and other possible reasons are on the table. One of my own speculations is that rap and hip-hop lyrics, wildly popular for three decades, helped set the stage. The opposite, political correctness, contributed at least as much.

When I criticize the left, it is for the preachiness that Maureen Dowd slams in her current post-election commentary. In my 2021 essay “Disability and Censorship,” I lament liberals’ insistence on setting the terms of debate as a predicate for discussion. People are told we cannot say “crazy” and we must not offend student sensibilities even in classes where delicate or painful subjects are taught. It’s as if to say, speak up, but do so with the vocabulary we impose on you. Political correctness is a huge contributor to disenchantment with Democrats.

And yet 1861 Southerners also felt they were being preached to by Northern abolitionists. They may have disliked the way abolitionists spoke to them, but weren’t abolitionists correct that slavery was immoral and cruel?

A similar question applies today. Considering that Republicans are willing to tolerate Trump’s racist, misogynistic and otherwise offensive slurs while rejecting leftist political correctness, what does their victory tell us?

In another essay, Lincoln Should Have Let the South Go (2020), I argue that, assuming slavery had ended, this country would have done better had it split in two in the 1860s. I hold that view even more strongly today as I contemplate the predominant blue Northeast and West Coast in contrast to the small islands of blue in a vast sea of red elsewhere in the country. The Mason-Dixon line may have shifted, but it still defines what are essentially two nations. It makes no difference that individuals like Trump is from New York or Elon Musk from South Africa; the country is split.

Critics attack Harris for calling Trump “fascist.” Harris accepted that word in response to a question rather than as a prepared announcement. Even so, she did not say it lightly, and ample evidence exists to make millions of us anxious.

Terrible consequences during Trump’s second term are beyond predictable:

Trump will give brave Ukraine to Putin. The rest of Eastern Europe will then be at risk.

Trump wanted to sabotage NATO in his first term. His adoration of Putin suggests he will carry out his design this time around.

Our allies will be further alienated by Trump’s planned tariffs.

Trump will manipulate foreign policy to benefit his own business interests in Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey and elsewhere.

Trump will work out a deal with Saudi Arabia that accommodates Israel but gives only token gestures toward a Palestinian state.

Autocratic leaders, such as Putin, Netanyahu and Orban, will have an ally in the leader of the country with the best technology in the world and hence access to it.

The exception will be Xi Jiang, who might just get unhappy enough to ratchet up pressure on Taiwan and increase the risk of war.

Inflation will grow. Along with tax cuts for Trump’s wealthy pals and himself, tariffs will contribute to rising costs at home.

Trump will subject millions of people residing in America to savage conditions as he sets about deporting “illegals” and other immigrants. Comparisons to the Nazi death trains are likely to be appropriate. Many of today’s immigrants left their home countries out of fear for their lives. Returning them will amount to death warrants.

Trump and his Republican enablers in Congress are likely to cut back on health insurance.

Women can expect their freedom to make medical decisions for themselves erode. As Trump said with regard to his exaggerated claims about dangerous immigrants and attacks from abroad, “… whether the women like it or not… I’m going to protect them.”

Judging by Trump’s supportive remarks, his ally RFK Jr. will expose the nation to measles, COVID and the other scourges that history shows were conquered only by vaccines.

Trump has announced he will cancel Biden’s executive order promoting a cautious approach to AI development with a more freewheeling one that favors his friends in the tech industry. It could become even harder to tell truth from fiction or to stop an AI-directed program to go rogue. It is no longer science fiction to conceive of AI overriding human controls, causing a power grid to shut down or a missile to launch.

A seemingly un-Christlike version of Christianity that applauds wealth, deplores “others” and endorses rabble-rousing rhetoric will now permeate government.

White House news conferences will be filled with lies and such dangerous recommendations as the one Trump made in 2020 that people afraid of COVID resort to bleach.

With government purged of professionals (the so-called “deep state”) and re-staffed with toady amateurs, our government will cease to be effective. Disaster response, food and medical programs, foreign diplomacy, transportation networks and all the other functions we take for granted will all deteriorate. Perhaps then Republican voters will discover just what a positive role government used to play in their lives.

These fears are only the beginning. Trump likes to surprise, and his surprises tend to be nasty.

So, liberals like me will spend more time puzzling over Trump’s popularity even as we criticize our own side for shortcomings that caused us to lose the election. But when we’re done adapting, we’ll start figuring out how to make America sane again. That so many will want to repair the damage is where hope lies. That, along with a tradition of democracy built up over the 248 years since the Declaration of Independence.

The day after the election, my wife walked through silent streets to the subway, then on to a train filled with silent, dejected passengers. But at 42^nd Street, a doowop group of elderly men got on. Laura overheard one say to the others, “Nothing political.” They proceeded to harmonize through a gorgeous song she didn’t know. Smiles came to the faces of the passengers. At 59^th Street, she stepped off the train, her heart a little, if briefly, lighter.

Despair is not an option.