The Fever Has Broken, But MAGA Survives

The fever has broken, but the body remains crippled.

Yes, the Democrats had a great night. Yes, the ten-year-long Trump ailment has finally subsided. But let’s exercise caution.

May we not delude ourselves into thinking democracy won and that our national nightmare is over. Let us not fool ourselves into thinking a mandate was given to the Democrats.

Trump and his cronies may have suffered an unrecoverable loss, but MAGA continues. Just as the Biden reprieve failed to repudiate MAGA, Tuesday night will fall short, too. The body politic remains broken, generations away from healing.

Why? Because the damage done over the past 23 months was so severe and has become so ingrained that it will require decades of physical therapy before this nation will ever be able to walk with its head held high. And some, me included, wonder if such a recovery is even possible.

First, let’s be real. The Democrats did not win; Trump lost.

People didn’t vote for the Democrats because they offered an ethical or moral alternative. They didn’t win because they presented a compelling vision for the future.

Citizens voted against Trump because they were paying an extra dollar for a gallon of gasoline. Purely selfish.

Per CBS exit poll data, almost 90% voted against the Trump agenda because the cost of living was too high, with about 67% directly blaming Trump for the financial squeeze.

Deciding how to vote encompasses many factors. But most voted against Trump not because of the unprecedented levels of this administration’s corruption, the sadistic treatment of the undocumented, or a refutation of toxic masculinity. Their choice was mainly out of the self-serving interest of paying less at the pump and in the grocery store.

Many who are fine with a tax system that privileges billionaires, immigration policies that incarcerate children, and the monetization of the Oval Office draw a line when their own pocketbooks are directly impacted.

Because this nation is morally bankrupt, what we did not see on Tuesday was a repudiation of MAGA. We only witnessed a rejection of its current leader and likely those closely associated with this malfeasant official (I’m looking at you, JD.).

As the adage goes, Democrats are adept at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. And because the votes they received were not exactly a mandate for their policies, we are but two years away from some slick former Republican governor rallying those who voted democratic in this round to return to their base. Such a governor will have benefited from MAGA while keeping a distance from Trump (I’m looking at you, Youngkin and Kemp.).

Regardless of what could become a presidential electoral seesaw, here is why I do not see a quick recovery from this nation’s moral illness:

• The damage done to our relationships with allies may be irreparable. We have lost the trust of Canada and European nations by threatening to annex their territories. We have become an unfaithful and untrustworthy partner as we embraced the caudillos threatening them.
  
• We have become a tariff-driven nation. How does the House reclaim its power of the purse?
• What do you do with a Supreme Court that has been supportive of the president’s more authoritarian tendencies, a Supreme Court at ease with denying women rights over their bodies and Black people rights over their votes?
• Let’s say we elect a Democratic president in two years, and one of their first tasks is to dismantle ICE. What do you do with a large cadre of militarily trained, Proud Boy-type former agents who are now unemployed and angrily blame those of us who occupy Latine bodies and have been vocal about ICE abuses?
• The thing that is literally killing us—gun violence—will continue to be a topic we are reluctant to tackle.
• How do you reestablish a dismantled scientific community as scientists and educators migrate to other countries that maintain and sustain academic freedom? The increasing brain drain will continue, especially as the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education remain shadows of what they once were. Policies of the past 23 months have condemned this nation to ignorance, celebrated by MAGA as progress.
• How do we respond to an economically growing China that, unlike us, cultivates power by investing in education and innovation? China can pour funds into securing its future because, unlike us, who prefer bullets over butter, it has not been engaged in a military conflict since 1979, while we, over the same period, have had troops on foreign lands discharging weapons in some thirty incidents. And here is the irony: We portray ourselves as peace-loving and China as wanting to engage in war when no other nation has been engaged in more military conflicts than we have. Both Democrats and Republicans have supported this pissing away of trillions of dollars.
• What do you do with an economic system geared to protect and serve billionaires while it bankrupts our youth with student loans, a predatory economic system? One that silently allows the wealth gap to widen, regardless of which party is in power, as a reverse Robin Hood is baked into our tax codes?
• At the end of the day, Trump will retire to Mar-a-Lago with grifted billions; his family will become the new aristocracy, while the rest of the nation pays the price for the past 23 months. Lesson taught: Crime pays.

Yes, the Democrats had a great night. But the MAGA nightmare continues. If the Democrats attempt to return to some pre-Trump status quo, they will compound the United Statians’ suffering. And yet, a glimmer of hope might exist. Several democratic socialists were elected Tuesday night with bold ideas—Medicare for All, abolishing ICE, a wealth tax, ending forever wars.

At this moment in history, we ignore them at our own political peril.