I have spent some time now, wondering why I have had such a profound emotional reaction to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris winning this election.
I realized I have spent the better part of the past five years focusing on warning about Trump, calling out his abuses and doing what I could to help defeat him. I’ve never spent so much time focused on a single goal for such a protracted period in my life (except trying to ensure my kids were happy and healthy). I’m not sure what I have done has made any difference at all. But the threat posed by Trump has always been so clear to me.
He has always seemed to me a national security threat which is why when I was at Foreign Policy, we broke tradition and endorsed Hillary Clinton while warning of that threat. He has emerged not only as a traitor but as an existential threat to American democracy. Never in my life has such a threat existed and it his defeat has had a greater urgency than any other political act in my sixty-plus years. I am under no illusion. We are a long way from having this race resolved. Clearly, the threat from Trump remains.
Indeed, the threat from Trump is particularly acute now and will be until he is gone. Further, the threat posed by Trump’s political base and by the remaining leaders of the GOP is also profound. They made Trump possible, beginning with Ronald Reagan.
Rupert Murdoch helped shaped the disinformation echosystem (yes…I mean “echo” not “eco”) that has fed half of America with lies. The Kochs have funded the hijacking of our institutions to serve their agenda for decades. Putin factored all this in his plan to weaken us. McConnell has been their shepherd in the Senate. Their sheep from Graham to the House extremists remain. This is the group has the fueled gross inequality, the institutional racism in the U.S., all the malign forces weakening us and further empowering the few and our enemies.
So the day after Trump goes a massive job of work will remain. But Trump has been such an immediate, unique threat–not just one of the very worst traitors in our history (as I have written in my most recent book), but the most corrupt, unfit, president in our history. He is also a vile man who has sought to fuel division in our country via fanning the flames of racial hatred, of seeking to normalize misogyny like his own, of debasing our institutions at home and abroad. Every minute he is president we are weakened and diminished as a nation.
So, forgive me the emotion. I know many many other people have put in similar much more significant efforts. But in some ways, this has been the resistance struggle of our adult lives and bringing Trump to the brink of defeat is a watershed.
The work will and must go on. But between us, I have to admit, there will be joy and a sense of relief when he is gone. That said, the toll he has taken, measured in suffering and in lives is so great that as much as we cheer his departure, we must mourn that he was here at all.
We still must come to grips with the why of Trump if we are to defeat the broader movement and have any chance of restoring and healing this nation. That won’t happen overnight. And no doubt we must be vigilant against further abuses by a desperate Trump as has proven nothing is beneath this president. He cares about no one but himself and certainly not about our country, our institutions, our values or the American people. So… onward. But there is no harm in being gratified by the progress we have made so far.
Well done to all of you who made this possible, to every voter, canvasser, donor or Thanksgiving table or water cooler speech-giver who moved us closer to this outcome.
And now, onward. There is, as noted, a great deal more work to be done.
p.s. I should add, as @deepstateradio listeners know, I am deeply moved by the election of @KamalaHarris–as a woman, a person of color, as a child of immigrants in this time when that issue is fraught, and as a brilliant leader of a new generation of Dem leaders (the first post-Boomer). It gets to me.
