These days, I feel like I’m suspended in glue, trapped in some kind of nightmarish dream sequence that refuses to end. Our democracy has just been traded away for nothing, sold off to a con artist and his minions in a shattered Republican Party, offered up on a silver platter to a man who represents the very antithesis of everything we supposedly believe about ourselves and our country. It’s a bleak moment in the United States, and it’s a bitter thing to think that we escaped the darkness of Trumpism only to allow it to come festering back into existence yet again, like some fairy tale monster that refuses to stay dead.
Much ink has been spilled recently about people tuning out and shutting themselves off from politics in America, following the stunning reelection of Donald Trump. This makes sense, as we naturally recoil when presented with the unthinkable. Our choice flew in the face of a mountain of evidence that Trump is a criminal, a tyrant, a pathological liar, and a sociopathic monster, and many of us seem unwilling to absorb what this election seems to say about our country, in our denial and grief.
In my own case, I haven’t tuned out so much as I’ve been stunned dumb by this cataclysm, as our polity grinds itself into dust in a suicidal paroxysm that will undoubtedly leave the United States sicker, weaker, and even more divided and broken, installing an authoritarian regime which poses a grave danger for the wider world and humanity at large.
That’s not to say I didn’t see this coming. Kamala Harris was a glaringly weak candidate, but Joe Biden’s refusal to accept the reality that he was no longer a viable candidate due to his advanced age until the very last moment sealed off all other political possibilities for Democrats. A Trump victory therefore seemed all but assured, at least it did to me in the months prior to the election. Unfortunately, I was proven right. But that his victory was predictable does nothing to soften the savagery of the blow, nor diminish the damage done by an American electorate seemingly intent on destroying itself, and smothering its own democracy for good.
Honestly, I’ve had to close my eyes, and turn away from this grotesque spectacle, having been filled with a level of disgust and disappointment that’s difficult to put into words. The idea that we’ve reelected this inept criminal yet again, after his first failed coup d’etat, after his criminal convictions and indictments, this craven con artist-clown openly intent on subverting our democracy, it’s baffling and infuriating. It has left me utterly numb and in despair, enraged at our own blindness and rank stupidity. Perhaps democracy simply does not work, if self-destruction is the inevitable end result. Certainly, American democracy hasn’t worked for some time. All of which is a sad testament to humanity’s inability to govern itself with even a modicum of wisdom. Tragically, we seem unable to learn even the most obvious lessons from history, namely that there’s no such thing as a benign dictator.
Truly, this feels like a blunder we may not come back from.
A taste of things to come
President-elect Trump’s first moves offer a preview of what’s to come: picking accused pedophile and portrait of corruption Matt Gaetz as his Attorney General (the reaction was so thunderous and bipartisan that Trump eventually relented, backing off this odious choice); picking veteran and Fox News host Pete Hegseth to lead the world’s most lethal military, a man notorious for his alcoholism, chronic womanizing (including a recent rape accusation), political extremism, and long history of professional incompetence. This is at a time of rippling geopolitical tensions and renewed superpower rivalry between the U.S. and an allied China and Russia, and two very hot wars involving American allies in both Europe and the Middle East. It’s a dumbfounding choice.
It’s hardly the time for an inept and falling-down-drunk Defense Secretary, whatever his apparent skills at producing cheap televised right-wing propaganda at Fox. In reality, I suspect Trump favors Hegseth precisely because of how weak and compliant he’ll surely be, should Trump feel the need to impose martial law on American citizens or perhaps bomb Mexican cartels to win the drug war, something he’s repeatedly suggested he’d like to do. Still more terrifying, Trump has recently been making noises about pursuing other foreign adventures, namely annexing Greenland and the Panama Canal, flirting with the kind of expansionist aggression we’ve come to expect from leaders of Trump’s stripe, notwithstanding his own alleged “isolationism.” The idea that Trump may now attempt to start redrawing international borders is deeply alarming, to say the least.
Indeed, Trump will certainly need a special sort of Defense Secretary who’s willing to start invading peaceful allied European countries with no provocation (Greenland is an autonomous part of Denmark), or marching into Latin America to retake old colonial possessions, and perhaps a soused and compromised Hegseth is just the man for the job.
I could go on about his other cabinet picks, but ultimately, all of Trump’s choices must necessarily share one abiding trait above all others: unquestioning loyalty and doglike fealty to Trump, no matter what else. They can be inept, drooling idiots, morally compromised conspiracy theorists, or brazen criminals, so long as they fear, respect, and serve the boss alone. This is at the philosophical heart of every dictatorial regime: an expectation of loyalty to the royal personage, rather than to the country itself. Suffice it to say this mode of governance is inimical to every conception of democracy, and self-government.
Throughout history, autocrats have consistently created inner circles comprised of reliable mediocrities, surrounding themselves with weak and pliable men who would do their bidding without compunction to law, ideology, or their own conscience or dignity. Trump learned this lesson well during his first administration, when establishment Republicans within his own administration frustrated his more insane and illegal impulses with stunning regularity. He can hardly be expected to tolerate that kind of dissent or independence going forward. Instead, his cabinet will be stocked purely with yes-men and sycophants, to the exclusion of all others, particularly in the most important and sensitive positions in the cabinet.
In other words, the president will be left unchecked by wiser and more deliberate men than himself during his second term in office, utterly unrestrained and free to let his darkest and most self-destructive instincts run wild, even as the world itself is a far more dangerous place than it was during his first term. It’s a perilous combination, as America unleashes an aging madman with no guardrails on a world that’s already burning quite hot.
A world in turmoil
As if to underscore how extraordinarily treacherous the world currently is, in November Vladimir V. Putin released Russia’s revised nuclear doctrine, spelling out that Moscow feels free to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear enemies supported by nuclear-armed states: see Ukraine. Russia then fired off a volley of hypersonic nuclear-capable missiles into Ukraine, in what was understood by all sides as a not-so-subtle message directed at the West from the Kremlin. Ukrainian troops supported by the U.S. are currently locked in brutal fighting with Russian and North Korean formations in both Ukrainian and Russian territory.
Meanwhile, the Middle East continues to convulse, following Hamas’s October 7th attack on Israel, and the multiple wars that have resulted, all of which have set the regional tinderbox aflame. Bashar al-Assad’s brutal dictatorship recently collapsed in Syria, where a few thousand U.S. troops are still based, as a new Islamic regime (with roots in Al Qaeda) has just taken power in Damascus. Hezbollah and Hamas, Iran’s terrorist clients, have been locked in combat with the Israelis in Lebanon and Gaza for many months, even as direct conflict between Iran and Israel has mostly been avoided, for now.
The point is this: the world has approached a dire inflection point, rocked by numerous hot conflicts, and amid grave challenges to the postwar global security order created and maintained by the United States, arising from multiple directions simultaneously. These threats come from a revisionist Russian dictator rampaging across Eastern Europe to relitigate the results of the Cold War, and from serial Chinese predations in the South China Sea, Taiwan, and elsewhere, as Beijing challenges America’s economic, military, and political supremacy around the world. Right now, the planet desperately requires calm and steady leadership in Washington. Instead, we’ve installed a chaotic and impulsive hustler into the presidency, a narcissistic novice with no grasp whatsoever of foreign policy, and who’s incapable of steadiness, wisdom, or real leadership.
Indeed, returning Trump to power is like pouring gasoline on a forest fire.
Frankly, I’m not sure which is the more terrifying prospect, Trump attacking journalists and arresting his political opposition at home, or perhaps inadvertently unleashing World War III abroad. In less than a month, Trump will inherit all the vast powers of the American presidency, including sole authority to wield America’s massive nuclear arsenal, or what Trump likes to refer to as his “big red button.” As it currently stands, we’re just one miscalculation away from utter catastrophe, and we’ve just handed the keys to an arsonist reality TV performer and his coterie of fools, drunk on the prospect of attaining absolute power.
America has made a grievous historical error, though the cost as yet remains unknown. God forbid we can’t afford the price exacted on us.
