Littwin: If Trump wins, I can’t explain why it happened. But unlike some Trump voters, I must believe my own eyes.
Election Day has come and gone, and our nation’s deep political divide is sure to linger.
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As I hit my deadline Tuesday night, we still didn’t know who won the presidential election, but we do know that Donald Trump is leading and, by the time you read this, the MAGA restoration could be complete.
That’s what we know. And here’s what I fear:
That whatever happens, democracy truly is on the line. For once, this is not political hyperbole.
I’m not saying this because I’m stuck in some gloom loop, although I may be.
I’m not saying it simply because the future of the Supreme Court is on the line and that Trump could get the chance to nominate so many more federal judges, taking the judiciary far to the right.
Or even because there is more than a small possibility under Trump that Project 2025 could spring mostly to life. Or even that Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — one crazier than the next — have emerged as Trump’s wingmen.
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No, I say this because approximately half of Americans, give or take a few percentage points, will have voted for Trump, and I don’t know why. And I have little idea what happens next, given that so many people are so angry, so untrusting, so hung up on grievances real or imagined, so certain the other side is evil, so willing to cast aside the Constitution, that they’re ready to believe whatever outlandish lie emerges from Trump’s mouth.
For some insight, you should read Adam Serwer’s very smart piece in the Atlantic, in which he does an excellent job explaining what he calls the three rings of Trump supporters.
The inner circle are those closest to Trump who embrace his radicalism and faux populism as a means to setting a Project 2025-like agenda. The next, and largest circle, is made up of the true believers who think the country has gone completely to hell and that only Trump can fix it. They’re the ones who see Trump as basically their cult leader. And in the third circle are Republicans who may not like much about Trump, particularly his vulgarity and casual disregard for the law, but who think tax cuts are important and immigration is out of hand and that the notion of Trump’s threat to democracy is so much liberal fearmongering.
There are two things these groups have in common. One, Serwer writes, is denial. And the other, I’d say, is grievance.
And the thing is, whether or not Trump wins the election, none of that changes.
I can’t explain it. I’ve been trying to explain Trump’s appeal at least since he came down that golden escalator in 2015.
I can’t explain why voters seemed to embrace not only his promise of retribution against his McCarthyite version of “enemies from within,” but also that anyone he determines “cheated” in this election would face “long-term sentences” and would “be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our country.”
I can’t explain why so many were unconcerned by the Trump notion that America is a hellscape that only Trump can fix. I don’t know. When I look around, I see a perfectly recognizable America. Do Americans no longer believe their own eyes?
I can’t explain why so many embraced his violent rhetoric, particularly against migrants and against women (whom he has creepily promised to “protect . . . whether the women like it or not”). But I know it has been the leading edge of Trump’s closing argument — from the lie about Haitians eating your pets to Trump’s imagery of Liz Cheney “facing nine barrels shooting at her.”
Some, including Harris, say Trump is unhinged — and if you watch his rambling speeches or saw the video of him saying that he “wouldn’t mind” if reporters get shot or heard him agreeing with his buddy RFK Jr. that it’s time to end water fluoridation, you might agree that he’s gone crazy — but I think it’s far more dangerous than that.
It looks as if Republicans will win back the Senate. The state of the House is in flux. Certainly Democrats have been rejected in this election, which could be an Electoral College landslide. And if the House goes Republican, we could see a Trump White House facing almost no restraints.
We don’t yet know who will win.
But as I tried to go to sleep Tuesday night, I knew very well what this election could mean to America. And I knew very well that if Trump wins, just how hard it will be for those on the losing side, who would have no choice but to pick themselves up and do the hard work to make sure that it could never happen again.
Mike Littwin has been a columnist for too many years to count. He has covered Dr. J, four presidential inaugurations, six national conventions and countless brain-numbing speeches in the New Hampshire and Iowa snow. Sign up for Mike’s newsletter.
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