The United States chose Donald Trump in all his ugliness and cruelty, and the country will get what it deserves.
Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Van Andel Arena on November 5, 2024, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)
America deserves everything it is about to get. We had a chance to stand united against fascism, authoritarianism, racism, and bigotry, but we did not. We had a chance to create a better world for not just ourselves but our sisters and brothers in at least some of the communities most vulnerable to unchecked white rule, but we did not. We had a chance to pass down a better, safer, and cleaner world to our children, but we did not. Instead, we chose Trump, JD Vance, and a few white South African billionaires who know a thing or two about instituting apartheid.
I could be more specific about the “we.” Roughly half of “us” didn’t vote for this travesty. I could be more specific about who did, and as people pore over exit polls, the only thing liberals will do liberally is dole out the blame. But the conversations about who is to blame, the hand-wringing about who showed up and who failed the moment are largely academic and pointless.
America did this. America, through the process of a free and fair election, demanded this. America, as an idea, concept, and institution, wanted this. And America, as a collective, deserves to get what it wants.
To be clear, no individual person “deserves” what Trump will do to them… not even the people who voted for him to do the things he’s going to do. Nobody deserves to die for their vote, even if they voted for other people to die.
But we, as a country, absolutely deserve what’s about to happen to us. We, as a nation, have proven ourselves to be a fetid, violent people, and we deserve a leader who embodies the worst of us. We are not “better” than Trump. If anything, thinking that we are better than Trump, thinking there is some “silent majority” who opposes the unserious grotesqueries of the man, is the core conceit that has led the Democratic Party to such total ruin. America willed Trump into existence. He was created from our greed, our insecurities, and our selfishness. We have summoned him from the depths of our own bile and neediness, and he has answered.
And now that he is here, we deserve our fate, because the most fundamental truth about Trump’s reelection is that Trump was right about us. He will be president again because he, and perhaps he alone, saw us for how truly base, depraved, and uninformed we are as a country. Trump is not a root cause of our ills. He did not create the conditions that allowed him to rise. He is, and always has been, a mirror. He is how America sees itself.
If people would just look at him, they would see themselves as we’ve always been. He is rich, because we are rich or think we will be. He is crass because we are crass. He is self-interested because we are. He punks the media because the media are punks. He is unintelligent because we are uninformed. The president of the United States is the singular figure who is supposed to represent all Americans, and Trump reflects us more accurately than perhaps any president ever has.
That’s why the people who love him love him so passionately. He is them. And he tells them that being what they are is OK. He never for a second requires America to be better than it is. He never expects more of America than it is able to give. Trump tells America to be garbage. Garbage is easy.
That’s why the people who hate him hate him so intensely. He’s the monster we turn into after a few drinks. He’s the intrusive thought we have at work that we don’t act on and try to quickly forget. He’s the glimpse you catch of yourself in the mirror that makes you think, “Damn, I need to hit the gym.” He’s the ketchup stain you acquired at lunch that you try to hide under your tie until the end of the day. He is our embarrassments, our failures, and our regrets made flesh and come to haunt us.
We cannot rid ourselves of Trump because we cannot run away from ourselves. This is who we are, whether we’d like to be or not. We will never be better than we are if we do not first confront what we are. As any recovering alcoholic or drug user could tell you, admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery. But that requires admitting you have a problem, not them, not somebody else, not the gods, not forces beyond your control.
Trump is America’s problem, but America is not ready to take responsibility for what we have become. And so, we will suffer. We’ve done this, and we deserve to face the consequences of our actions. Indeed, the utter lack of consequences is a huge reason why Trump is back: America could not bring itself to punish our avatar after he left office the last time, and so we must sit for our remedial lessons. The beatings, as it were, will continue until morale improves.
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Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation
Everyone who hates Trump is asking how America can be “saved” from him, again. Nobody is asking the more relevant question: Is America worth saving? Like I said, Trump is the sum of our failures. A country that allows its environment to be ravaged, its children to be shot, its wealth to be hoarded, its workers to be exploited, its poor to starve, its cops to murder, and its minorities to be hunted doesn’t really deserve to be “saved.” It deserves to fail.
Trump is not our “retribution.” He is our reckoning.
Elie MystalTwitterElie Mystal is The Nation’s justice correspondent and the host of its legal podcast, Contempt of Court. He is also an Alfred Knobler Fellow at the Type Media Center. His first book is the New York Times bestseller Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution, published by The New Press. Elie can be followed @ElieNYC.