Democracy Is Precarious
Trump can win
Donald Trump can win the 2024 presidential election.
That is not to say he will win, or even that he is likely to win. But it is, at this point, a distinct possibility.
For millions of Americans, this reality is a source of unbridled euphoria. They can’t wait to vote for this man a third time. They chant his slogans, flock to his rallies, and inundate social media with a fervor that verges on the messianic.
Of course, the idea that Trump could be president again, and what that would mean for the future of our republic, fills millions of other Americans with existential dread — and disbelief. How can this be after all that we have seen and know? How can someone facing dozens of serious criminal charges — including ones pertaining to his attempt to destroy America’s constitutional order — still command enough support to be anywhere near the presidency again?
The national chasm that the man has deepened — and how and why — is the biggest political story of our times. We need to understand and grapple with what led us to this moment. At the same time, we have no choice but to try to reckon with the implications of Trump’s electoral prospects.
At Steady, we are not fans of horse-race political coverage, particularly this far out from an election. Fifteen months might as well be a millennium in terms of how much can change. So our instinct was not to dwell on the banner headlines sparked by a recent New York Times poll that showed President Biden and Trump in a statistical tie.
These polls have more caveats than a cell phone service contract. Nevertheless, when you look at the big picture, we end up with the conclusion with which we started today: Trump can win.
We have discussed extensively within the Steady community what a Trump victory would mean for American democracy: at minimum a catastrophe, at worst a death knell. And with that conclusion, it is understandable that his resilience in the face of everything that should disqualify him could lead to despair among Democrats, like-minded independents, and even anti-Trump Republicans. Why is this country still where it is today? Why do so many remain in the thrall of this con man? Why do his obvious excesses not prove fatal to his political prospects?
It’s been eight long years since Trump descended his escalator and announced his campaign for president. Eight years during which this country itself has descended — into vicious political divisiveness and attacks on our democratic freedoms. Many hoped the 2020 election would break the fever. But it hasn’t. And that can be exhausting, if not downright debilitating.
The difficult truth is that in order to defeat Trumpism, America will have to defeat Trump again with votes. While he faces a litany of legal peril in state and federal court, these cases may not be completely resolved for years, especially when one factors in the appeals process. A verdict at the ballot box will have to come first. (Although some legal scholars and historians wonder whether the 14th Amendment, which bars anyone who has engaged in insurrection from holding government office, could apply in this case.)
Ultimately, the country will have to say once more that Trump is a loser and those who follow his lead will lose as well. This is what will be required to extricate America from the quagmire of our current vulnerabilities.
There is a chance Trump could lose in the Republican primary, but at this point that seems unlikely. If you squint you can potentially see some vulnerability in Iowa polls, and the campaign is hemorrhaging money as his legal bills mount. We are also in uncharted waters. We’ve never had a candidate having to bounce back and forth between a campaign and court. Will that take a toll on his support? In the past several years, wishful thinking has so often yielded disappointment.
The probability is that Trump will be the Republican standard-bearer in 2024. And, for those who seek to defeat him, this means that their efforts should move to full-throttle immediately.
As exhausting as it may feel to those who have been in the political trenches battling Trumpism for years, the immediacy of the struggle persists. The efforts that led to a repudiation of Trump in the 2018 midterms, to his defeat in 2020, and to the disappointing results for his acolytes in 2022 must be renewed for 2024. This includes local organizing, especially in battleground states, canvassing for votes, volunteering, and fundraising.
One of the lessons of the Trump years is that our democracy is fragile, and particularly precarious during this current era. But this is also a key lesson of our history. When you consider where we started — the gulf between the rhetoric of “all men are created equal” and the reality of our nation at its founding — we can see proof of the fight it has always taken to make America more free and secure.
We had a bloody civil war. And then a civil rights movement to defeat Jim Crow. Women couldn’t vote until the second decade of the 20th century. Still the fight for racial justice and women’s rights continues. As does the fight for Native rights, LGBTQ+ rights, labor rights, and so many others. Democracy is not a spectator sport. But for anyone who may be discouraged, our national story contains a string of victories for those who believed the United States could be better.
America’s political landscape has always included those who would divide us, diminish us, and desensitize us to the urgency of equality and justice. Sometimes these forces seem to lie dormant, but in our short history they have risen often. And when they do, courageous and committed Americans have banded together to defeat them in ways that ultimately strengthened our nation.
There is a lot of evidence that Trump would lose once more. But it’s not a given. The hard work to make America “a more perfect union” continues and is dependent upon enough Americans who care.
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You asked “Why is this country still where it is today?” To a large extent, we can thank the media for their subpar reporting and comments. It’s hard to find anything good about what Joe Biden has done and is doing while we’re constantly barraged with trump’s image and stories about his great poll numbers.
In addition, today’s Republican politicians are cowards, more interested in maintaining their position than doing their jobs and defending our Constitution.
What we see now is cult behavior. For a good lesson and understand on how cults work, read Broken Faith by Mitch Weiss and Holbrook Mohr.
And, by the way, in the early 1980s, I wrote a research paper on Authoritarians and the religious right for a psychology class, and can tell you what is happening in our country
now was well planned.
I'm interested to see what happens with the vote in Ohio today. That could be indicative of how much people care about their rights. We've lost so much because of the Trump presidency. All of us need to do whatever we can to ensure that it doesn't happen, again.