Room For Teensy Bit of Optimism After Trump Wins
I am overwhelmed by the horror of how bad will it get with trump back in the nuclear driver’s seat
But I do see two reasons to be not as horror filled.
One is that trump can now spare us the incessant years of litigation and creation of conspiracy groups of every name and shape in the name of a mythical, “stolen” election. As one columnist put it, we now won’t have to put up with the “trumpers’ vote-fraud tantrum and full hangry-toddler-in-the-grocery-store.”
So in trump world, he won so the electoral system isn’t corrupt.
A feint beacon of hope is that we will be rid of trump forever in four years, maybe. Or maybe this is just all a big dream and we will wake up in the morning to a Harris victory. Maybe the anointed one will actually usher in a “golden age in America.” Nah.
My wife said trump won because the majority of Americans will not support a woman president. She may be right as many millions of Americans voted for trump, whose foibles and sexual escapades are among the most documented of any president.
But millions of Americans also voted against trump. So is the system half empty or half full?
The total figures aren’t in yet for 2024 but the results show that the nation is just about sliced down the middle.
Democrats said trump was a “fascist,” a “wannabe dictator” and a “petty tyrant” who is “unstable,” “obsessed with revenge,” “consumed with grievance” and “out for unchecked power.”
Either half of America didn’t hear the warnings or didn’t believe them. Maybe many Americans want to see soaring retail prices, creation of massive immigrant detention camps, fluoride removed from water, an end to the silly climate change hoax and an early Christmas present in the name of Ukraine to Russia. Maybe millions of Americans want to be led by a “fascist,” “wannabe dictator” and “petty tyrant” who is “unstable,” “obsessed with revenge,” “consumed with grievance” and “out for unchecked power.”
Trump has been correctly attacked for being xenophobic and misogynistic and racist. That may be the hope of millions of angry Americans who are passionate that transgender people not use a bathroom of their gender identity or be allowed to pick up a hockey stick in a men’s hockey program.
For perspective, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that about .6 percent of people 13 and older identify as transgender. That includes around 1.6 million adults 18 and older and youths 13 to 17. Not exactly a huge number.
Trump was projected to collect 71,424,921 votes or 51 percent of the total who voted. Harris was projected to win 66,478,457 votes or 47.5 percent. Green Party candidate Jill Stein was expected to get 622,973 votes or .4 percent of the total votes. Stein took away a significant number of votes from Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 but Stein’s support in 2024 was inconsequential to sway the election for Harris.
Trump’s 2016 victory jumpstarted a huge national outpouring of anger and opposition to the would-be dictator. Hopefully, the loyal opposition will again surface and with even greater anger in advance of the 2028 election, if there is one. Millions of people must stand united because they have so much to lose under trump, who will likely make it much harder for women to get an abortion, join a union, participate in mass protest or get vital financial aid. Undocumented immigrants or transgender people face real dangers as do journalists, judges, left-leaning politicians and anyone else who questions trump’s authority.
And for a silver lining, lackluster as it is, at least the bizarre, racist, sexist, xenophobic Mark Robinson lost his run for North Carolina governor, unlike trump who won in North Carolina in his bizarre, racist, sexist, xenophobic run for president.
And to take a bit of the edge off the election nightmare, some of the good guys and gals won, including the Democratic “Squad,” made of representatives Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts. Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont also cruised to re-election victories.
The Democratic Majority Leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries won in New York’s 8th District. In California, Nancy Pelosi won her 20th term to represent the state’s 11th District.
Maybe trump would be back in Mar-a-Lago licking his wounds rather than salivating over another four years in the White House if more Americans had read Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 cautionary story, the dystopian novel, “It Can’t Happen Here: What will happen when America has a dictator.” The book focuses on homegrown authoritarianism in the U.S. and has been translated in 12 languages.
Written at the time of Adolf Hitler’s ascension to power in Nazi Germany, the book’s main characters are Doremus Jessup, a liberal newspaper editor who is gob smacked by the rise of Sen. Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip. Windrip is a crude, attractive demagogue who campaigns for president by fomenting fear and promising drastic economic and social reforms and a return to patriotism and “traditional” values. After his election, Windrip imposes totalitarian rule with the help of a paramilitary force, in the manner of European fascists such as Hitler and Italy’s Benito Mussolini.
Jessup and other well-meaning liberals refused to grasp what was happening. Lewis wrote that Jessup “simply did not believe that this comic tyranny could endure.” Jessup blames himself and his class for being oblivious to Windrip but he laments, “If it hadn’t been one Windrip, it’d been another. … We had it coming, we Respectables.”
Windrip runs on a populist platform, vowing to restore the country to prosperity and greatness, and promising each citizen $5,000 per year. He portrays himself as a champion of “the forgotten man” and “traditional” American values.
After he is elected, Windrip outlaws dissent, imprisons political enemies in concentration camps, and trains and arms a paramilitary force called the “Minute Men” who terrorize citizens and enforce the regime’s policies.
Windrip’s administration, known as the Corpo government, slices women’s and minority rights, and abolishes individual states by subdividing the country into administrative sectors. The sectors are managed by Corpo authorities, usually prominent businessmen or Minute Men officers. Anyone accused of crimes against the government faces kangaroo courts presided over by military judges. A majority of Americans approve of these dictatorial measures, seeing them as painful but necessary steps to restore American power.
In time, Windrip’s grip on power falters as economic prosperity fails to materialize, and increased numbers of disillusioned Americans flee the country. Underground opposition to Corpo power grows and the government tries to stir up patriotism by invading Mexico. Riots and rebellions lead to civil war finally upending the Corpos rule.
After trump’s 2016 presidential election, sales of “It Can’t Happen Here” surged and the novel appeared on Amazon.com’s list of bestselling books.
“It Can’t Happen Here” has been seen as cautionary tale about the 1936 presidential election and potential candidate and demagog Huey Long of Louisiana. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s internment of Japanese Americans during World War II has been cited as an example of “It Can’t Happen Here.”
Other books that have reflected a dark, authoritarian future have been compared with trump’s rise to power. They include:
· “The Handmaid’s Tale,” written in 1985 by Margaret Atwood. The dystopian novel is set in a near-future fundamentalist New England.
- “Parable of the Talents” written in 1998 by Octavia Butler, is a dystopian science-fiction novel that some said predicted the rise of trump’s presidency.
- “The Man in the High Castle” written in 1962 by Philip K. Dick, reflects an alternative history, where Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan are in control of America and the world.
- “Seven Days in May,” written in 1962 by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Baily II, is about an attempted military coup in the U.S. government.
- Jack London’s 1908 novel, “The Iron Heel, is an American dystopian novel.
- “V for Vendetta” is a graphic novel about a terrorist overthrowing a post-apocalyptic fascist Britain. It was written in 1988 by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Lloyd and Tony Weare.
- Philip Roth’s 2004 novel, “The Plot Against America,” is alternative history novel about how Charles Lindbergh defeated President Roosevelt in 1940 and instituted antisemitic and pro-German policies.
- Jo Walton’s 2008 “Small Change” trilogy revolves an alternate history where a fascist government takes over Great Britain.