The United States of America has chosen to elect a rapist, fraudster, and twice-impeached felon to its highest office for a second time. Instead of a Black woman with over 21 years of experience in public office, America has decided to entrust the nuclear codes to a leader who openly quotes Hannibal Lecter and publicly admires dictators like Viktor Orban, Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un. Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike have spent the last year warning the public about Donald Trump’s aspirations to become a dictator and his dark, menacing demeanor towards marginalized groups including (though certainly not limited to) illegal immigrants and trans people. And now, America is faced with a threat to its democracy unlike any we have ever seen.
It has often confounded me that Donald Trump would even stand a chance at reelection after all of the setbacks that he has suffered on the campaign trail. He faced four criminal trials—all at the same time—offering former Democratic nominee Joe Biden a leg up on campaigning while Trump sat miserably inside a New York courtroom. Later, his conviction in the Stormy Daniels hush money trial—a case that revealed a blatant misuse of campaign finances—would have automatically disqualified anyone else in America.
This is even without mentioning Project 2025, the far-right plan for a second Trump presidency that was exposed early this year and should have made every demographic of American (besides wealthy white men) frightened.
He told thousands of lies on the campaign trail, from continuing to whine about how he had the previous election stolen from him (it was not), to claiming that legal Haitian immigrants had been eating the pets of the residents of Springfield, Ohio (they weren’t), and that is just the tip of the iceberg. And even still, Donald Trump remained not only the Republican party nominee for his third election cycle running but he consistently polled nearly level with Kamala Harris in every swing state and in national polling.
The damage that Trump’s presidency could do to America should not be understated. Beyond the dangers of the implementation of Project 2025, Donald Trump has shown clear disregard for the Constitution, the rule of law, and the norms of how the highest-ranking government official should act. He has called for the “termination of the Constitution,” threatened the use of the National Guard on protesters he disagrees with, and threatened to take away the licenses of members of the press that have been critical of him. Trump will listen to no one other than himself, he is going to serve no one other than himself, and he ran this race for no one other than himself.
It remains to be seen what damage will be done to America’s standing in global politics. However, Trump’s election will permanently alter the standards and the qualifications that are necessary to win the presidency. Since the day he rode down the golden escalator at Trump Tower announcing his long-shot bid in 2015, Trump has shattered the norms around decorum, transparency, and accountability for presidential candidates.
Trump’s second election will have a long-lasting effect on American democracy and has the potential to begin America’s descent into authoritarianism.
This article also appears in our November 2024 print edition.
