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Upon learning the result of the 2016 election, the first thing that I said was, “We’re in trouble.” It didn’t take a genius. I said the same thing but with greater trepidation in 2024. It’s unfortunate that Democrats chose to run on "protecting democracy" as their theme, not because it wasn’t true, but because it’s an abstraction for most voters, who pay more attention to the price of eggs than the values of the Enlightenment. And so Donald Trump was elected again, and we are worse than in trouble, we are on the brink.
This may sound like a liberal screed. It’s not. We are in grave danger not because the President of the United States is a Republican. In fact, many of his policies share nothing with normal Republican ideology. Republicans like low taxes. Trump (unlawfully) imposes tariffs, a tax. Republicans like free markets. Trump negotiates a government stake in U.S. Steel and Intel. In another time we would call that socialism.
Rather, we’re in danger because, a) Donald Trump doesn’t believe he has any duty to follow or enforce the law; b) he’s a vindictive man who is willing to harness the power of the state to punish his perceived enemies; c) he is shielded by the enthusiastic, almost militant support of his MAGA base, no matter what law or standard of behavior he transgresses; d) because MAGA, in particular, is so frightened and angry that they will find a way to rationalize violence against some fictitious “radical left"; and e) because the moderate voters who might in other circumstances be up in arms so far remain strangely tolerant of this crude lawlessness.
How bad could things get? Pretty bad. According to many experts who study political violence, we are in a precarious state that portends worse things ahead. I thought I would suggest a podcast I discovered, one that discusses the ways nations collapse into civil war. Yes, civil war, not because we are a really angry people, which we are, but because we have organized ourselves into factions of a particularly dangerous kind. I’ll summarize it for you, but you can find the entire discussion here on YouTube, should you wish to listen.
From the Prof G podcast (Professor Scott Galloway, a “raging moderate” economist at NYU, and his guest Barbara F. Walter, an expert in totalitarianism and civil wars at the University of California.
Walter worked on a CIA task force that studied countries with high levels of political violence. The goal was to create a model to identify countries at risk. See if these sound familiar.
- Parties and factions organize themselves less around political and economic beliefs and values, and more around attributes like race, ethnicity and religion. Not "free traders" or "unions," but Whites, blacks, Christians, Muslims, etc. At least for now the Democratic Party remains diverse (though still majority white). But Republicans have coalesced into a predominantly white, very vocal (and not all that Christian) Christian team. This can happen, says Professor Walter, when a previously dominant group fears its power is slipping.
- Contested elections amplify the fear that the other side will take control and never relinquish it. Thus, people stop believing in the normal ebb and flow of politics, which promises that they will eventually be back in power. They fear they will lose everything in a zero-sum game.
It’s so discouraging, as it predicts that in the absence of some countervailing influence or event that would bring us back together, e.g., a Pearl Harbor or 911, that things will get worse, possibly catastrophic. We’re certainly headed in that direction, as recent political assassinations in Minnesota and Utah have shown. And as the President is more inclined to fan this fire, there is no one to remind us, instead, of Lincoln's "bonds of affection," the ties that bind.
The widow of Charlie Kirk made a good start at her husband’s funeral when she said that guided by her Christian faith and values, she forgave his assassin and urged others to do the same. Unfortunately the President took a much darker approach, expressing outright hatred for his perceived enemies, and by implication encouraging the same from his supporters.
Thus, we are on the brink of catastrophe, a few more assassinations away from political collapse. At least, that's what our own CIA’s model suggests is possible. Mostly what is happening saddens me more than it angers me, but one thing that does anger me, and which contributes to our toxic atmosphere, is MAGA’s kind-to-themselves uber-patriotism. They’re so certain of their own virtue while equally certain that everyone on the left is not just unpatriotic but downright traitorous. That’s not true, but they indulge this fiction to justify their wholesale abandonment of our Constitutional, legal and institutional safeguards.
They wouldn’t believe it, but really, can’t we all still say, “God Bless America,” with a straight face? I can. But, I fear we may have lost touch with the Divine Providence of the Declaration, which guided the founders when they created our Republic (if we can keep it) that Donald Trump and his most dedicated fans are trying to destroy.
