The United States Is Still in Serious Trouble
COVID-19 cases are rising at a horrifyingly high pace, and so are the deaths. More Americans have died from COVID-19 in one year than have died in combat fighting the Third Reich and Japanese Empire in four years during World War II.
Trump attempted to enlist the United States military in assisting a coup d'état. Fortunately, it looks like the US military will not assist him.
Far more concerning than Trump’s attempted Putsch is the fact that the Republican Party’s transition into an authoritarian party similar to the ruling parties in Russia or Turkey that began after the Civil Rights Movement and went into overdrive after Trump fatefully went down that escalator is now complete. What is worse is that this change was driven at the GOP grassroots level, regardless of what people may want to say.
A clear majority of my fellow White Americans are so dedicated to Trumpism that they will kill themselves for it. A larger percentage of White Americans voted for Trump in 2020 than in 2016. Listen to any listener calling into Rush Limbaugh’s show. It’s terrifying.
But most serious of all, the Russians just recently carried out one of the most devastating digital attacks on the United States in US history. They even managed to successfully hack into a program containing information about the US nuclear arsenal. Being true to form, Trump is actively aiding Putin in denying the overwhelming evidence, despite the digital rubble.
In a situation like this, buying time is absolutely critical, and not even this step is always a guaranteed success.
Defeating Donald Trump on November 7 was just buying a very sick patient some time.
A Word on My Mistakes
My biggest mistake was assuming that there were only two outcomes to the 2020 election.Either democracy in America got off its deathbed, or it would be pulled off life support.
I failed to imagine the current situation, in which Trump was defeated but Trumpism was still a formidable adversary in the form of the current GOP. Put another way, democracy in America is not dead, but it is still relying on life support.
In addition, I also failed to foresee that reckless behavior by the regressive left, Trump’s talent of pulling out millions of voters, and bad strategic/tactical decisions made by Democrats would cause the down-ballot carnage that it caused.
Worst of all, I seriously underestimated just how popular Donald Trump and what he represents is to millions of Americans.
Prognosis for American Democracy
In retrospect, it took a miracle for Trump to be defeated at all. Not to mention that Democrats are lucky they held the House given just how badly they did in the down-ballot races.COVID-19 was custom designed to attack the greatest weaknesses in the United States: a lack of respect for expertise (or, in some cases, an understandable mistrust of it from communities of color, Black and Native communities especially), the urban-rural divide, regional sectarianism, and institutionalized white supremacy.
None of these problems are getting better.
Taking my home state of Minnesota as an example, the divide between the Twin Cities Metro (plus Rochester, Duluth, and a few other islands of blue in Greater Minnesota) and Greater Minnesota is only getting worse. The reason Minnesota has a divided legislature right now is that Minnesota itself is increasingly a divided state.
In this regard, I fear that Minnesota is turning into Wisconsin: a state that has a harsh urban-rural divide, an extremely polarized political environment, and a highly dysfunctional state government.
I honestly don’t know how to reverse the urban-rural divide, but I do have a few ideas on what strategic moves Democrats can make to cope with it and even benefit from it.
As for the United States itself, I am not feeling optimistic. It will take another miracle from President-elect Biden to reverse these long-running and destructive trends.
But ’tis the season for miracles.