This election is different – ​​The Atlantic

When I was a little boy, my dad decorated the back of our Dodge Coronet 440 station wagon with bumper stickers. Proud to be Americanread, an expression of a simple truth: Both of my parents loved America deeply, and they passed that love on to their four children.

In high school, I defended America in my social studies class. I wrote an article defending America’s support for the South Vietnamese in the war that had recently ended in defeat. My teacher, a war critic, was not impressed.

I applied for a scholarship or award at the University of Washington. I don’t remember the details, but I do remember meeting two professors who were unhappy that I had sided with the United States in the Cold War in an essay I had written. They believed that the United States and the Soviet Union were much closer to moral equivalents than I believed then or now. It was a controversial meeting.

From the November 2024 issue: The moment of truth

As a young conservative working in the Reagan administration, I was inspired by President Ronald Reagan’s depiction of America – borrowed from the Puritan John Winthrop – as a shining “city upon a hill.” Reagan mythologized America, but the myth was based on what we believed to be a core truth. Within the conservative intellectual movement to which I was a member, writers such as Walter Berns, William Bennett, Leon R. Kass, and Amy A. Kass, as well as the historian Gertrude Himmelfarb, wrote powerfully about patriotism.

“Love of the land – the expression sounds almost archaic today – is a sublime feeling, just as ennobling as the love of family and community,” Himmelfarb wrote in 1997. “It elevates us, gives greater meaning to our daily lives, empowers the individual “Dignity.” even if it humanizes politics.”

I find this moment particularly painful and disorienting. I have had a strong interest in Republican presidential candidates who have won and lost, including some for whom I have great personal admiration and whose campaigns I have worked on. But no election before the Trump era, regardless of the outcome, has ever made me question America’s fundamental decency. I felt that my fellow citizens made erroneous judgments at certain times. These moments disappointed me, but none of their decisions were remotely inexplicable or morally unjustifiable.

This choice is different.

Republican Party nominee Donald Trump is a pathetic figure, and the misery is not subtle. His vileness, his lawlessness and his malevolence are revealed. At this point, it’s fair to assume that these qualities are central to Trump’s appeal to many of the roughly 75 million people who will vote for him in three weeks. They indulge in his vices; they are enlivened by them. Film by millions.

Trump could lose the election, and with that defeat America could avoid the terrible fate of another term. But we must also recognize this: The man whom the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff called “fascist to the core” and “the most dangerous person in this country” is in a razor-thin contest against Kamala Harris, a woman who, whether one agree with her or not, is well within the normal boundaries of American politics. If he loses, he won’t concede. Instead, Trump will try to tear the country apart. He can count on the almost unconditional support of his party and the majority of the white evangelical world. You will stand by his side again in the name of Jesus.

This should shock the rest of us. Not because America, although an extraordinary nation, has ever been perfect or nearly perfect. We have seen slavery and segregation, the Trail of Tears and the internment of Japanese Americans, McCarthyism and My Lai, the Johnson-Reed Act and the beatings and torture of the suffragists, the Lavender Scare and the horrors of child labor. But what makes this moment different and unusually dangerous is the fact that we have never had a president who is sociopathic before; who enjoys cruelty and promotes political violence; who describes his political opponents as “vermin,” echoing the rhetoric of 20th-century fascists; who resorts to crime to overturn elections, who admires dictators and thrives on fomenting hatred. Trump has never had it well, but he has never had it this bad. The prospect of him once again wielding the enormous power of the presidency, this time with far fewer restrictions, is frightening.

From the November 2024 issue: The case for Kamala Harris

Jonathan Rauch, a contributor at The Atlanticrecently reminded me that the founders warned us about such a scenario. They knew this could happen, he said, and they gave us several protections. There is a risk that these protective measures will fail. “My faith in democracy is crumbling,” he told me. “A part of me breaks with this.” The Americans have three weeks to prevent the break.

During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln told Americans in his annual message to Congress: “Here we have the power and we bear the responsibility.” It was, of course, about emancipation, but also about “honor or shame.”

“We will nobly save the world’s last great hope or easily lose it,” Lincoln concluded his remarks.

If Donald Trump wins the election, those of us who grew up loving America will not stop loving it. But it will be a love marked by deep disappointment and concern, almost to the point of disbelief. It’s one thing, and quite disturbing, for Trump’s soul to represent the soul of his party. For all we know, it is something completely different for him to represent the soul of his country as president. It would be an act of self-desecration.

We’re not there yet. We’re still a republic if we can keep it.