{"id":34411,"date":"2024-11-06T14:36:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-06T20:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=34411"},"modified":"2024-11-06T19:53:40","modified_gmt":"2024-11-07T01:53:40","slug":"america-will-regret-its-decision-to-reelect-donald-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=34411","title":{"rendered":"America will regret its decision to reelect Donald Trump\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A presidential campaign defined by personal hatreds<\/u><\/a>, threats of political violence<\/u><\/a> and two foiled assassination attempts ended on Tuesday in a mostly orderly election. No matter what the results ultimately show, Americans\u2019 commitment to a fair and peaceful vote is a thumb in the eye to authoritarians both at home and abroad.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s about all the joy Democrats (and lovers of democracy) will find in yesterday\u2019s election results. The fleeting optimism that washed over the party after Ann Selzer\u2019s storied Iowa poll showed Kamala Harris unexpectedly leading Donald Trump\u2002<\/u><\/a>by 3 points has crashed back to reality. In its place is the realization that democracy\u2019s worst-case scenario is unfolding in real time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our democratic institutions are not ready for what comes next. Neither are the American people.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trump who will walk into the White House on Jan. 20 is a man steeped in unsettled vendettas<\/u><\/a>, who came within a hair\u2019s breadth of a string of federal felony convictions that he is now empowered to wipe away<\/u><\/a> with a self-pardon \u2014 as if those offenses and so many others had never even happened. Trump will see his priorities as he has always seen them: party over country and self over all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A man with 34 felony convictions<\/u><\/a> can\u2019t win the presidency in a nation where trust in institutions is high. It\u2019s only in a culture where the justice system has long since lost its legitimacy that a man with such a thick criminal record as Trump glides by relatively unremarked. That one man can so effortlessly game American institutions to his own benefit says as much about the decrepit state of America\u2019s institutions as it does about the moral decrepitude of the crook.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The nine years of the Trump era have taken a bat to our democracy, and Trump\u2019s MAGA movement has exploited the nation\u2019s systemic weakness at every turn. Political misinformation flooded<\/u><\/a> social media networks owned by Trump\u2019s key allies, or by Trump personally. Meanwhile, Trump and compliant Republican lawmakers torched public trust in the courts \u2014 first by appointing an ethically vacant<\/u><\/a> Supreme Court, and later by urging his followers to hate and distrust not only the judges who tried him but the entire \u201crigged\u201d justice system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump is now set to return to the White House, and he\u2019s made no secret of his lofty goals for a second term: gutting the civil service<\/u><\/a>, destroying the independence of the Justice Department<\/u><\/a> and seeking political and legal revenge on his lengthy list of personal enemies<\/u><\/a>. Judging by yesterday\u2019s election returns, a majority of Americans are eager to see Trump do exactly that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The former and future president now inherits a nation deeply weakened by his own toxic brand of politics. Our divided and exhausted nation will now need to fend off the constant extralegal whims of a president who is also, thanks to the Supreme Court, functionally immune<\/u><\/a> from prosecution for any act he undertakes. If Trump\u2019s first term was any indication, we won\u2019t need to wait long for our next constitutional crisis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Believers in the rule of law are in for a rough four years, because though Trump contradicted himself countless times during this marathon campaign, he never wavered in his distaste for the rule of law<\/u><\/a> or his admiration for strongman autocrats<\/u><\/a>. Members of the press can expect Trump to at least try making good on his oft-repeated pledge to rewrite the nation\u2019s press freedom and libel laws<\/u><\/a>. The rest of us will be along for the bumpy and chaotic ride. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It matters that Trump won his office in a free and fair election. It matters that free people voluntarily chose to cloak Trump in power he will almost certainly abuse in far-reaching and destructive ways. Our country made the choice to walk down the dark path of Trump\u2019s resentments and conspiracies. We will come to regret it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

thehill<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A presidential campaign defined by personal hatreds, threats of political violence and two foiled assassination attempts ended on Tuesday in a mostly orderly election. No matter what the results ultimately show, Americans\u2019 commitment to a fair and peaceful vote is a thumb in the eye to authoritarians both at home and abroad.   That\u2019s about all the joy Democrats […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":34412,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[10444,1613,5463,1230],"class_list":["post-34411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-america-2","tag-election","tag-regret","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34411"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34413,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34411\/revisions\/34413"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}