Eight years ago, when I woke up to learn that Donald Trump had actually beaten the most qualified candidate ever to run for president of the United States, I was gutted – but also angry and resolved to get to work fighting, with every fiber of my being, against the worst of the horrors he had promised on the campaign trail.
When I woke up Wednesday morning (after maybe four hours of fitful sleep) to discover that he had not only won, but with a larger mandate than last time, I was gutted again – but the only other emotions I felt were sadness and resignation. Because this time, I realized, America had walked into this with our eyes wide open.
Kyrie eleison.
After all that they had seen over the last 9 years – descending his golden escalator and calling Mexicans rapists when announcing his campaign; his deeply evil child-separation policy; his claim that there were “good people on both sides” of a white supremacist rally; his extortion attempt of Ukraine that led to his first impeachment; his massive mismanagement of a pandemic in 2020 that cost untold numbers of American lives; his leading an effort to cling lawlessly to power on January 6, 2021; his ceaseless lies and open racism, homophobia and transphobia in his 2024 campaign – after being forced to wade in that nearly-decade-long cesspool of vileness, a majority of Americans still went into the ballot box this year and said, “Sure, give me some more of that.”
Christe eleison.
The difference between the aftermath of 2016 and 2024 is that, while 2016 shook my faith in my fellow Americans, 2024 has utterly destroyed it. What we saw was no longer a fluke, but rather a massive, collective and disturbingly well-distributed moral failure.
While the Democratic Party and broader pro-democracy coalition has already devolved into the usual finger-pointing, recriminations and post-mortems, there is no one flaw in messaging or outreach or process or demographic group on which to pin this particular failure.
Indeed, Trump’s gains were spread out across red states and blue states, urban and rural areas, and virtually every major demographic and ethnic group. Just about the only demographic groups with which Trump didn’t significantly increase his lead among voters were Black women and LGBTQ voters (who actually shifted significantly away from Trump).
Why?
Well, if this election proves one thing, it’s that far too many American voters are some combination of mean, bigoted, self-centered, spoiled, lazy, easily distracted, and – above all – truly, deeply, breathtakingly ignorant, with the long-term memory of a goldfish and the critical-thinking skills of a toddler.
They don’t know how a bill becomes a law, what the Constitution’s separation of powers is, who has the power to appoint and confirm Supreme Court justices, the most basic laws of economics, or how to evaluate the relative reliability of various sources of information.
What else could explain the fact that large majorities of voters said they were supportive of abortion rights (and even approved expanding those rights in deep-red states), but still elected the man who ended Roe v. Wade and other Republican officials who have vowed to institute a nationwide abortion ban? What else could explain the large share of voters who said they cared most about the economy and the high cost of goods, but voted for the candidate whose only two clear policies – 20% across-the-board tariffs on all imported goods and sudden mass deportation of all undocumented immigrants – would, economists agree, be wildly inflationary?
So, instead of the most poised, winsome, articulate, and presidential candidate imaginable, voters in every part of the country and across racial and demographic groups chose to go back to the world’s most incoherent carnival-barker and chose to buy the same snake oil he has peddled for going on a decade now. That is simply a moral failure on an incomprehensible scale.
Overcoming this kind of collective moral failure won’t be accomplished by simply running a different candidate or having better messaging in 2028 (if, indeed, we still have free and fair elections by then). If this is a matter of our fundamental national character, then, how do we move on?
I don’t really know, but in a week of little sleep, I’ve had a bit of time to reflect, and I think I know of at least two things we can do going forward:
First, we go small.
Those of us on the pro-democracy side of this struggle have been fighting it for years now with a level of energy that is impossible to expend forever. So, what’s a worn-out, cashed-out activist to do? Begin supporting organizations that can actually do real, measurable good on the ground in defending those who are first in the line of fire.
This means organizations like Fight for Our Rights, a PAC that targets anti-LGBTQ candidates in local and state elections for legislative bodies, school boards and library boards. It also means supporting your local and state efforts to defend abortion rights and organizations that provide shelter, protection and support to LGBTQ kids and their families. And it means supporting organizations that fight for the rights of undocumented migrants.
Second, we focus on renewing our faith communities.
Far too many churches have already been corrupted by a particularly Trumpian brand of Christan Nationalism that bears much more of a resemblance to the Nazi perversion of the German Protestant church in the 1930s than anything resembling biblical Christianity. If we are not vigilant, more and more churches will fall victim to this brand of cheap jingoism fused with strongman-worship.
If you are in a “purple” church, take special care to ensure your pastors and your laypeople are educated on the dangers of Christian nationalism. If you are in a progressive church, do what you can to reach out to those who have been alienated by Christian Nationalism.
I can’t count the number of friends from whom I’ve heard this week who have told me that they have been driven away from Christianity altogether because of its association with Trump. Indeed, Donald Trump has singlehandedly done more to harm the cause of Christ than all the devils in Hell put together.
He’s already destroyed our country; don’t let him destroy the church too.
It might not seem like much comfort, but it’s the best way forward I can see right now. After all, as much as my faith in my fellow Americans has been destroyed, and as much as I just want to grieve and mourn, I am still called to defend those with less privilege and power than I have right now.
And that’s all we can do: Sit in our grief, share our sorrows, and then figure out how we can strike a match and start shining a little light in the terrifying darkness that has consumed us.
Kyrie eleison.
A communications professional and former longtime journalist in Washington, D.C., he is a member of The First Baptist Church of the City of Washington, D.C. and a member of the GFM governing board.
