No, All Is Not Lost

The existential political fight to save this republic is here. It’s been here before - and it will be here again. Our job is to rise to the challenge. Not succumb to the Trump Doom Loop.

The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere - Grant Wood

We may be entering the final year of this American democracy. 

That’s the message of several gloomy but pointed essays here in early December, as the days grow to their shortest and dimmest points, and the next national election comes into focus as possibly our last. 

“There is a clear path to dictatorship in the United States, and it is getting shorter every day,” wrote conservative contributing editor Robert Kagan in a searing Washington Post essay last week that details both the path to a second Trump presidency and how that will lead to the destruction of the current republic. “We are closer to that point today than we have ever been, yet we continue to drift toward dictatorship, still hoping for some intervention that will allow us to escape the consequences of our collective cowardice, our complacent, willful ignorance and, above all, our lack of any deep commitment to liberal democracy,” he concluded.

Not to be outdone, The Atlantic followed with If Trump Wins, a special project considering what Donald Trump might do if reelected in 2024. In his lead essay, editor David Frum declares:

A second Trump term would instantly plunge the country into a constitutional crisis more terrible than anything seen since the Civil War. Even in the turmoil of the 1960s, even during the Great Depression, the country had a functional government with the president as its head. But the government cannot function with an indicted or convicted criminal as its head. The president would be an outlaw, or on his way to becoming an outlaw. For his own survival, he would have to destroy the rule of law.

Then there’s The Economist, which also warned of an authoritarian and diminished United States, declaring that “​​Donald Trump poses the biggest threat to the world in 2024” and reporting that “the prospect of a second Trump term fills the world’s parliaments and boardrooms with despair.”

These are all relatively conservative voices, but they are speaking with quivering fear on what they foresee as the demise of liberal democracy - of cherished institutions, the strength of a diverse and free social commons, the importance of a cohesive civil society, and the centrality of the rule of law. Much of this is the realization that yes, Trump can win. What follows from that is increasingly clear: the end of American democracy as we know it, vast oppression, and the growth of authoritarian rule.

To be clear - this is all possible.

But there are adjunct questions that are just as vital: is it likely to happen, and what are you doing about it?

I think there is reason to be cheerful, energetic and engaged. Yes, the existential political fight to save this republic is here. It’s been here before and - if the country survives - will be here again in another generation or two. But we are here. We are alive. We have a choice. We have a supply of energy and treasure. And we can take action.

That’s simplistic, of course. But the avoidance of conflict, mindless whining, and oceans of narcissistic passive despair will do nothing. “They” are not coming. “They” will not save us. “They” do not exist. You do, and we do. And we yeah, we can. To use a dog-eared cliche - didn’t you want to live in interesting times?

As Greg Sargent argues keenly in his Washington Post column: “Undue fatalism could even prove counterproductive, de-energizing voter opposition exactly when Trump is brazenly projecting his dictatorial intentions.”

No question about it. In her essay in The Nation countering the skein of Dictator Trump predictions, Joan Walsh makes an incisive argument against malaise and defeatist exhaustion: “It’s important to look clearly at the devastating consequences of a second Trump term. I almost wrote “unthinkable” consequences, but we can think about them, and we should. We should not paralyze ourselves with alarm, or divide into panicky factions searching for a political savior.”

Joan argues for supporting voter registration efforts, donating more money, and just plain getting involved. But I’d also argue for yelling a lot - to normie voters, to your cousin Josh, to your district office manager, to Beth your favorite bartender. Make Trump’s open plans for democracy’s death part of everyday conversation. I was taken with this part of Amanda Marcotte’s Salon post on the current Trump doom loop phenomenon:

Trump is flagrant about his goals because he knows the only people who are paying attention are already either fierce supporters or people who were going to vote against him anyway. The huge swath of Americans who may not vote or aren't sure who to vote for, however, aren't paying close enough attention to know what's going on. They didn't hear Trump call people "vermin." They don't know what Project 2025 is. They get their news from Facebook or TikTok, if they get much of it at all. 

Exactly right. So don’t add to that ignorance, folks, We don’t need more Democratic doom loopers - we’ve over-supplied in that particular category. What we need are cheerful warriors. Sure, you’re worn down since 2016 from seemingly fighting the same fight against a foe who is both brazenly stupid, yet shockingly relentless. You’re rational, you have other plans. So how long can this go on?

As long as necessary. As long as world wars. As long as civil rights movements. In the aftermath of the 2016 election, the left-side “resistance” movement was widely mocked by the far left and far right - and vastly effective. Indeed, the broad liberal Resistance was one of the most successful citizens movements in American history. It undercut Trump at every turn, delivered a mid-term tidal wave, and eventually tossed him out of office - all why shrugging off the hipster Bernie left and the incel-loving fascist right. Can we do it again? Yes we can. 

Greg Sargent got this right: 

The aim is to hypnotize voters into forgetting the power and numbers that they possess, persuading them that politics is a hopelessly sordid and disappointing exercise. But that is not the story of the Trump years. The purpose of this isn’t to downplay the gravity of the moment; it’s to channel anxieties about it in a constructive direction.

Institutional liberalism held the line last time around. And we can hold it again, with frankly, more insight into the dangers of Trump and stronger ammunition against the MAGA brownshirts. We simply cannot wallow.

On June 28, 1934 Franklin Roosevelt gave his fifth “fireside chat” to radio listeners around the country. Then, as now, the forces of totalitarianism were gathering strength - including in the United States. I think his almost 90-year-old words are very much worth reviewing this winter, as we consider the stakes of the decisions and actions to come next year. Turn up your radio dial and gather ‘round:

If I were to listen to the arguments of some prophets of calamity who are talking these days, I should hesitate to make these alterations. I should fear that while I am away for a few weeks the architects might build some strange new Gothic tower or a factory building or perhaps a replica of the Kremlin or of the Potsdam Palace. But I have no such fears. The architects and builders are men of common sense and of artistic American tastes. They know that the principles of harmony and of necessity itself require that the building of the new structure shall blend with the essential lines of the old. It is this combination of the old and the new that marks orderly peaceful progress - not only in building buildings but in building government itself.

Our new structure is a part of and a fulfillment of the old.

All that we do seeks to fulfill the historic traditions of the American people. Other nations may sacrifice democracy for the transitory stimulation of old and discredited autocracies. We are restoring confidence and well-being under the rule of the people themselves. We remain, as John Marshall said a century ago, " emphatically and truly, a government of the people. " Our government "in form and in substance ... emanates from them. Its powers are granted by them, and are to be exercised directly on them, and for their benefits."