In the coming days, commentators will attempt to normalize this event. That the electorate has, in its plurality, decided to live in Trump’s world of vanity, hate, arrogance, untruth, and recklessness, his disdain for democratic norms, is a fact that will lead, inevitably, to all manner of national decline and suffering. That he has prevailed, that he has won this election, is a crushing blow to the spirit it is an event that will likely cast the country into a period of economic, political, and social uncertainty that we cannot yet imagine. director’s heedless and damaging letter to Congress about reopening his investigation and the reappearance of damaging buzzwords like “e-mails,” “Anthony Weiner,” and “fifteen-year-old girl.” But the odds were still with Hillary Clinton.Īll along, Trump seemed like a twisted caricature of every rotten reflex of the radical right. Potential victories in states like Georgia disappeared, little more than a week ago, with the F.B.I. It will be a test of our seriousness and resolve.Įarly on Election Day, the polls held out cause for concern, but they provided sufficiently promising news for Democrats in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, and even Florida that there was every reason to think about celebrating the fulfillment of Seneca Falls, the election of the first woman to the White House. The most hopeful way to look at this grievous event-and it’s a stretch-is that this election and the years to follow will be a test of the strength, or the fragility, of American institutions.
Trump is vulgarity unbounded, a knowledge-free national leader who will not only set markets tumbling but will strike fear into the hearts of the vulnerable, the weak, and, above all, the many varieties of Other whom he has so deeply insulted. There are, inevitably, miseries to come: an increasingly reactionary Supreme Court an emboldened right-wing Congress a President whose disdain for women and minorities, civil liberties and scientific fact, to say nothing of simple decency, has been repeatedly demonstrated. It is impossible to react to this moment with anything less than revulsion and profound anxiety.
On January 20, 2017, we will bid farewell to the first African-American President-a man of integrity, dignity, and generous spirit-and witness the inauguration of a con who did little to spurn endorsement by forces of xenophobia and white supremacy. Trump’s shocking victory, his ascension to the Presidency, is a sickening event in the history of the United States and liberal democracy. The election of Donald Trump to the Presidency is nothing less than a tragedy for the American republic, a tragedy for the Constitution, and a triumph for the forces, at home and abroad, of nativism, authoritarianism, misogyny, and racism.
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