This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
Yes, the election that put Donald Trump back in the White House was a close one indeed. After all, he didn't even win 50% of the vote. Of course -- no surprise here -- he hailed it as an "unprecedented and powerful mandate" while his campaign termed it a "landslide," but it was one of the narrowest victories in a presidential campaign since the nineteenth century. And yet, however narrow it may have been, in the process, Donald Trump has distinctly transformed the Republican Party into his own MAGA property. The Republicans are now the Mar-a-Lago of political parties, and little more.
Worse yet, in the process, as New York Times pollster Nate Cohn pointed out recently, he's also transformed the Democratic Party in increasingly unsettling ways: "Almost every traditional Democratic constituency has swung to the right. In fact, Mr. Trump has made larger gains among Black, Hispanic, Asian American, and young voters in his three campaigns since 2016 than he has among white voters without a college degree." He added, "It has belatedly become clear that his rise may have meant the end of the Democratic Party as we knew it as well."
So, we find ourselves in a disturbingly new political world, although given the loss of a Black woman in Election 2024, the second woman to be defeated by The Donald, we're in an all too old one as well. And in age terms, given a 78-year-old president, who will be the oldest ever if he completes his second term in office, this world of ours is "new" in distinctly unnerving ways. Mind you, the man who claimed he would be a "dictator" on his first day -- but only his first day -- in office this time around is also already joking -- no joke whatsoever, of course -- about a possible third term as president.
The question for those of us who are appalled by such developments and by the second presidency of You Know Who is: What's to be done in this old-new world of ours? For an answer to that this 80-year-old has turned to TomDispatch regular 78-year-old Ira Chernus. Join him in exploring the possibilities. Tom
Join the Resistance? Yes, But"
Resistance to Trump's Mean and Nasty Version of America Is Necessary, But Not Sufficient
By Ira Chernus
Count on one thing: the next four years are going to be tough. If you can muster the energy for political action while Donald Trump and his minions rule Washington, it will have to be channeled in two ways: first, resisting the worst excesses of him (and his party of billionaires); and second, keeping up the effort to make life truly better for everyone, especially the most vulnerable among us.
Or wait. Should it be the other way around? Could a good offense be the best defense?
At the moment, it's a question that's not getting much attention. It may seem all too obvious right now that resistance has to be the top priority. Who could have been surprised by the impassioned pleas to resist when Trump won?
That reflex couldn't be more natural. No matter how old you are, for as long as you can remember, every president's critics have focused on resisting the dangers they saw in him, while his supporters hailed him as strong enough to resist the dangers they saw threatening the nation.
Such strength was apparently just what voters wanted in 2024, too. As a New York Times headline summed up the outcome right after Election Day: "America Hires a Strongman."
Why?
As former President Bill Clinton once explained, "When people are feeling insecure, they'd rather have someone who is strong and wrong rather than somebody who is weak and right." New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd made the point in a more colorful fashion: "When Americans are scared," she wrote, they want their president to be "the strong father who protects the home from invaders."
What dangers? What invaders? Every winning candidate for president gets to fill in those blanks in whatever way he (and yes, it always has been a he) thinks will get him the most votes, any connection with reality being purely optional. So, while Kamala Harris offered quite realistic warnings about threats to democracy, Trump traded on fictional images of "illegal" immigrant murderers and rapists, "big bad" transgender girls threatening oh-so-pure "real" girls, and the "Marxists" heading up the Democratic Party. And, of course, we know who won.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
Post Article Comment and Rate This Article
