Now What?

Well, you did it, America. You just filled the presidency with a man who felt it necessary to inform the public about the size of Arnold Palmer’s penis. He is also the person who guided the county through a pandemic by extolling the health benefits of horse dewormer; who displayed no discomfort with women bleeding out in parking lots while doctors’ lawyers mulled over their eligibility for treatment; who seemed poised to grant a vaccine-denier a role in public health; who expressed a preference for Hitler’s generals; who has threatened the freedom of reporters, members of Congress, and election officials who resist him.

How far will he go? Will he really commit acts that exceed the parameters of democracy in a manner – to use his words – unlike anything anyone’s ever seen before?

Will he arrest Liz Cheney, Adam Schiff, Jack Smith, and snuff out media outlets that annoy him?

Maybe he’ll just do silly things, like order issues of Forever stamps picturing flags of the states he carried. Or a special release of quarters with one of the following words on the back: PERSON WOMAN MAN CAMERA TV.

Even if we do not know what is coming, there is one thing we can reliably predict: when he rolls out his craziest, cruelest, most toxic actions, expect no profiles-in-courage from a single elected Republican.

Given this, rather than speculate, perhaps this would be a time to step back, take inventory, and examine the points of failure, even when they are our own.

Instead, let’s point fingers.

Merrick Garland: To paraphrase Steve Bannon: We needed a pit bull but got a Boy Scout. From the beginning, it became clear that he felt no urgency about enforcing the January 6th Committee’s subpoenas. Worse, he dawdled. It was not until Jack Smith appeared in November of 2022 that an aggressive attempt to go after the true architects of the insurrection visibly crystalized. By then it was too late. That lost year made it all the more likely for Trump’s run-out-the-clock strategy to succeed. It did.

Mitch McConnell: “There’s no question – none – that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for the events of the day.” McConnell made this statement shortly after voting to acquit Trump in his January 6th impeachment trial. Ten more Republican votes would have resulted in Trump’s conviction, potentially rendering him ineligible to ever run again, and ending his grip on the Republican party. More than anyone else in government, McConnell was positioned to push for those votes – to be sure an uphill battle – but in the end he made no effort.

Washington Post / Los Angeles Times: Would a pair of scathing editorials have altered the course of the election? Obviously not. But the abdications made a statement; it was like the captain and crew of the Titanic being the first to abandon ship. Clearly, the publishers read the tea leaves and were worried about reprisals. A newspaper worried about reprisals for criticizing a sitting president? This smacks of something more in keeping with Putin land.  Are we already there? The press is supposed to be the Fourth Estate – the institution that informs us and stands up to the high and powerful. If, instead, they cower in retreat, what do you think we can expect from universities, city councils, school boards, weather bureaus, textbook publishers, or any other entity with something to lose?

Elon Musk: Could the inventor of a ground-breaking automobile, reusable rockets, and a network of satellites also use his genius to flip a presidential election? We don’t know that. What we do know is that in the run up to the 2024 election, Trump’s ground game was considered a vulnerability. Musk helped out by funneling in thirty-seven million dollars from his America PAC, importing busloads of paid canvassers.

His million-dollar-per-day lottery payments to swing state voters was a strikingly Trumpian stunt. The randomness of the winners is now being questioned, as is the propriety of monetary enticements to targeted voters. Trump has called him a “rising star.”

SCOTUS: The January sixth trial was possibly the singular opportunity to hold Trump accountable for his attempts to overturn the election. By awarding him an expansive measure of immunity, the trial was stopped in its tracks. We all saw the pattern: Delay. Delay. Delay. ALL STOP!

The Public: So, here’s an opportunity to invite trouble. Few things in American discourse possess more third rail peril than casting aspersions on the intelligence, wisdom, or moral rectitude of the American public. Look at the trouble Hillary Clinton incurred when she crammed half of Trump’s supporters into her “basket of deplorables.” What earned one’s entry into the basket was an attraction to Trump based solely on his racist, xenophobic rhetoric. Perhaps her percentages were off, but was it really wrong to speculate? Consider this thought experiment: Donald Trump steps off the escalator in 2016 and tells his followers that immigration is a terrible problem, at the same time speaking respectfully of those trying to get here due to circumstances that are entirely not their fault. Would that version of DJT ever have attracted the following he commands today?

Or, riddle me this: a candidate runs, loses, lies about it, then foments an attack on the capitol resulting in multiple deaths. What can be said about a constituency where the negative consequence of that is zero?

 

But he won. Now what?

I suspect that in a few months the landscape will look quite a bit different that it does today. By then, the first outrages will be taking form, and pockets of opposite karma will begin to emerge. Two organizations that emerged after Trump’s win in 2016, Swing Left and Indivisible, are still with us today. Other groups appeared on a local level, working for down ballot candidates, organizing street fairs, staging fundraisers (musical, artistic, culinary), and fostering a sense of community. Some may find comfort in these nascent havens, while others simply return to whatever gave their lives meaning before Trump wormed his way into their brains. The objective will be the same. Latching onto something – anything – will be better than wallowing at his mercy.

He has no mercy.

#References:

Ground game 37 mil donation:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/01/trump-musk-america-pac-fraudulent-door-knocks

America PAC lottery did not select winners by chance:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/11/06/elon-musk-trump-pac-lawsuits/

Legality of lottery:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/could-elon-musk-face-legal-trouble-for-his-1-million-lottery-heres-what-experts-say