Like everyone else who has ever lived in a functional democracy, I’ve supported candidates for political office in the past who have lost elections. Very often, actually. It’s part of the deal.
And it usually sucks.
But the stakes of this election put it in an entirely new category beyond just another win or loss for a particular candidate, party or set of ideologies. This one stands alone and will forever be known as a tipping point from which the very idea that America is on an upward march towards being a more perfect union may never recover.
And like the title of this website states, it’s not even about politics or policies.
In the aftermath of Trump’s recent victory, those of us passionately opposed to the prospect of his return to power have struggled to make sense of how and why it happened while despairing about what the validation of Trumpism means for us individually, societally, and for the world at large.
One of the most immediate and personal fallouts of his re-election thus far has been the disintegration of relationships and connectivity between those who voted for him and those of us who have not.
And the inability of our colleagues, friends and family who voted for Trump to understand the depth and breadth of our disgust and fear at the result is just as destabilizing to us as the results of the election itself.
Just as the days since November 5th have unfolded for us with the inevitability of a slow motion train wreck, the realization that both sides can’t seem to recognize that we live on two seemingly incompatible planets based on an apparent inability or unwillingness to identify similarly incompatible core human values has been shocking. This disconnect stems from the failure of his supporters to comprehend how comprehensively repugnant we consider the decision to double down on Donald Trump to be.
Trump supporters seem genuinely shocked and confused that we are finding it difficult to share head and heart space with those who have enabled the rise of his worldview. I see a recurring talking point response with variations of the same plea:
“Can’t both sides just lead with love?”
Here’s the thing:
It’s too late for that. We all had the opportunity to choose leading with love, and just over half of us chose the opposite. You can’t have it both ways.
And don’t misunderstand – nothing about this suggests that Kamala Harris was the perfect choice in any way other than the fact that she was not Donald Trump. But that was all that was required.
It was the lowest bar imaginable: choose someone who did not value self-serving, divisive hate over democracy, the rule of law, and basic human decency. And as a nation we couldn’t even clear that bar.
The GOP that is now fully remade and burnished in Trump’s repulsive image has celebrated its “F*** Your Feelings” ethos throughout his rise, culminating in an approach to governance more focused on ‘winning’ micro-battles over topics overweighted towards emotional nationalism than preserving the centuries-old values of the promise of America striving to be an ever more perfect and shining City on a Hill.
And now that it has wrested the soul of the American Experiment from the path of decency and into an unserious clownshow of self-focused retribution, revenge, and an abhorrence of accountability, you want us to come back at those of you who proactively chose this with love and togetherness?
Some Trump supporters who are saddened by the division their choice created have expressed this request in service of specific policies. The price of groceries. Abortion. Immigration.
Those are all valid and worthy – and usually difficult – conversations that we need to have. Conversations we’ve been having with various degrees of success for a long time, usually tipping back and forth, sometimes even ferociously, but almost always in good faith with at least the premise that both sides were trying to make the world better. But those conversations are not relevant right now. Not when we’re faced with a threat to who we fundamentally are as a society. To discuss typical political topics via typical political debate is a luxury we now don’t enjoy solely because Donald Trump was one of our two choices.
What those currently being divorced by Trump-opposed friends and family aren’t willing or able to see is that our opposition to Trump’s validation at its core does not rest primarily upon political policy choices about the cost of living or even reproductive rights – as critically important and impactful as those issues are.
Again, it’s not about politics.
I wrote before the election about how it was an opportunity for us collectively to declare who we think we are. For a majority of us now to have decided that we are willing to embrace and elevate what Donald Trump’s worldview requires is revolting and unforgivable. It’s not just a devil’s bargain to ‘put up with’ his repugnancy because he (supposedly) represents a better path towards resolution of issues important to you – it’s an abdication of our responsibility to leave the world a better place than how we found it.
A few days ago my wife and I attended a concert. It was a rock concert, but there was an intimate, almost reverential vibe within the arena as we watched and listened to a rock legend play and sing. A middle-aged guy on a date with his partner was sitting in front of us, and towards the last of his 7 trips to restock his drink of choice, he began to get more and more chatty. He began loudly talking with his neighbor about things clearly unrelated to the concert for several minutes, including during one of the few periods during the concert where the artist was sharing some personal insights and thoughts between songs.
We leaned forward and respectfully asked if he could lower his volume a bit. But rather than apologizing or even grumpily acknowledging and adjusting a bit, he spent the remainder of the concert belligerently belittling us and yelling about having been spotlighted for being insensitive or in any way held accountable for his actions.
That exchange, in a microcosm of current day human interaction, is what has been created when we as a society proactively embrace Trumpism. Over the past 10 years, he has normalized combative, childish, self-centered unaccountability and a celebrated sense of self over others. Living in Trump’s America and seeing that nice guys don’t always win has allowed the worst instincts of people like the guy in front of us at the concert to rise into the light and not just be tolerated, but also be upheld as some perverse iteration of what strength actually looks like. Trump being chosen to sit in the Oval Office yet again is leading to the dramatic decay of human decency in our society.
There are consequences to our actions. If you voted for Trump while ‘holding your nose’ about him ‘occasionally saying something nasty’ in order to supposedly get closer to a policy on a political topic that is important to you, and if you’re shocked and hurt that those of us could not or would not do so and aren’t excited about sharing time and space with you, know that the chief consequence of your vote and your willingness to subjugate decency in return for political points scored is that it is now harder for us to trust your judgment.
Not about policies per se, but about the extent to which you view Donald Trump’s worldview as even remotely acceptable. Either you are not able to identify the threat he poses to our democracy and national ideals, or you can see it but have determined that his ability to ‘fix’ whatever issues you deem critical outweighs the repugnancy he represents and embodies. Either of those pathways is troublesome and does not instill confidence, and given the damage his next presidency will do to our national will and decency, at best it’s not compatible with sound judgment, and at worst it reveals a threat to the very values that have made America the greatest country the world has ever known… until now.
So no, we’re not going to lead with love. We all had a chance to reject fascism and restore a trajectory towards increasing decency, and we failed. Living in the America chosen by those who support Trump will mean enduring a world that celebrates self over others, lies over truth, grotesquerie over grace, hubris over humility, revenge over empathy, machismo over accountability, and ignorance over enlightenment.
I know people who have voted for Trump who are good and decent people that want the best for others. To have embraced or even to have apologized for Trump does not mean you are a bad person. But it does reveal a schism between us that is what we’re finding so difficult to reconcile: how can you want the best for others while raising up the very embodiment of a leader hellbent on destroying the value system that we’ve all taken for granted for so long?
We can’t meet your decision with love, but that doesn’t mean our love is dead. Sometimes love means making hard choices, even when they may – in a vacuum – seem to work against your personal interests to serve the greater good. By distancing ourselves from champions of Trump’s glorification of the deconstruction of our ideals, we are protecting what’s left of the idea that America can and should be a place where decency and good can prevail in the face of authoritarian fascism and self-facing greed.
Don’t suggest that somehow ‘both sides’ are to blame for where we are. One side – however flawed and incompetent as a political party – has remained committed to the free and fair exchange of ideas via democratic norms and processes, while the other unashamedly broadcasts its glee in planning to limit free speech and a free press while suppressing dissent and even imprisoning those who express differing viewpoints. To ‘both sides’ this argument is insulting and ridiculous.
And don’t try to pass this off as a red team versus blue team game that’s been played for centuries, because this time it’s different. This time there are lasting consequences to a degree not seen before. We had the opportunity to lead with love, and if you chose the opposite, you’re on shaky ground if you try to now ask us all to love and respect one another equally.
That ship has sailed, and Donald Trump is now its captain.