The United States elected Donald Trump in all his ugliness and brutality, 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 gets. We had a chance to stand together against fascism, authoritarianism, racism and bigotry, but we didn’t. We had a chance to create a better world not only for ourselves, but for our sisters and brothers, at least in some of the communities most vulnerable to unchecked white supremacy, but we didn’t. We had a chance to pass on a better, safer and cleaner world to our children, but we didn’t. Instead, we elected Trump, J. D. Vance and a few white South African billionaires who know a thing or two about introducing apartheid.
I could be more specific about “we”. About half of “us” didn’t vote for this travesty. I could be more specific about who did it, and while people are scrutinizing the exit polls, the only thing liberals will liberally do is shift the blame. But the talk of who’s to blame, the wringing of hands about who showed up and who missed the moment, is largely academic and pointless.
America did it. America, through the process of free and fair elections, demanded it. America as an idea, a concept and an institution wanted it. And America, as a collective, deserves to get what it wants.
To be clear, no single person “deserves” what Trump will do to them…not even the people who voted for him to do what he’s going to do. No one deserves to die for his vote, even if he voted for the death of other people.
But we as a country absolutely deserve what will happen to us. We as a nation have proven ourselves to be a stinking, violent people and we deserve a leader who embodies the worst of us. We are not “better” than Trump. In any case, thinking that we are better than Trump, thinking that there is some “silent majority” that opposes the man’s frivolous grotesqueries, is the underlying conceit that has led the Democratic Party to such utter collapse. America wished Trump into existence. It was created out of our greed, our insecurities and our selfishness. We called to him from the depths of our own bile and need, and he answered.
And now that he’s here, we deserve our fate, because the most fundamental truth about Trump’s re-election is that Trump was right about us. He will be president again because he, and perhaps only he, has seen how low, depraved and uninformed a country we really are. Trump is not the root cause of our troubles. He did not create the conditions that allowed him to rise. He is and always has been a mirror. He is what America sees itself as.
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If people would only look at him, they would see us as we have always been. He is rich because we are rich or think we will be. He is stupid because we are stupid. He is interested in himself because we are. He punks the media because the media is punk. He is unintelligent because we are uninformed. The president of the United States is the one figure who should represent all Americans, and Trump represents us more accurately than perhaps any president.
That’s why the people who love him love him so passionately. He is theirs. And he tells them that it’s okay to be who they are. He does not for one second demand that America be better than it is. He never expects more from America than it can give. Trump tells America to be trash. Garbage is easy.
That’s why the people who hate him hate him so much. He is the monster we turn into after a few drinks. He is an intrusive thought that we have at work, which we do not react to and try to quickly forget. He’s the glimpse of yourself in the mirror that makes you think, “Damn, I need to hit the gym.” He’s the ketchup stain you acquired at dinner that you try to hide under your tie for the rest of the day. He is our embarrassments, our failures, and our regrets, made flesh and beginning to haunt us.
We can’t get rid of Trump because we can’t get rid of ourselves. This is who we are, whether we want to be or not. We will never be better than we are unless we first face who we are. As any alcoholic or drug addict can tell you, admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery. But it needs recognition you there is a problem, no themnot someone else, not gods, not forces beyond your control.
Trump is America’s problem, but America is not ready to take responsibility for what we have become. So we will suffer. We did it and we deserve to face the consequences of our actions. Indeed, the complete lack of consequences is a huge reason for Trump’s comeback: America couldn’t bring itself to punish our avatar after he left office the last time, and so we have to sit through remedial lessons. The beating, as it were, will continue until he morally recovers.
Everyone who hates Trump is once again asking how America can be “saved” from him. No one is asking the more pressing question: Is America worth saving? As 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 amassed, its workers to be exploited, the poor to be starved, the police to be killed and minorities to be hunted, does not really deserve to be “saved”. It deserves to fail.
Trump is not our “retaliation”. He is our calculation.
We cannot retreat
We now face a second Trump presidency.
There is nothing to lose. We must use our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger to oppose the dangerous policies that Donald Trump is unleashing on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as principled and honest journalists and authors.
Today we are also preparing for the future struggle. It will require a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis and humane resistance. We are faced with the passage of Project 2025, a far-right Supreme Court, political authoritarianism, rising inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis and conflicts abroad. Nation will expose and propose, develop investigative reporting and act together as a community to preserve hope and opportunity. NationThe work will continue — as it has in good times and bad — to develop alternative ideas and visions, deepen our mission of truth-telling and in-depth reporting, and expand solidarity in a divided nation.
Armed with 160 years of courageous independent journalism, our mandate remains the same today as it was when the Abolitionists were founded Nation— to defend the principles of democracy and freedom, to serve as a beacon in the darkest days of resistance, and to see and fight for a bright future.
The day is dark, the forces are building tenaciously, but it’s too late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is just the time when artists go to work. No time for despair, no room for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we make language. This is how civilizations heal.”
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Katrina Vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, Nation
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