Where do we begin bringing light to a new dark age?

08 November 2024

It may seem odd to talk about joy after Tuesday’s devastating defeat. Many of us, including myself, believed for good reasons that most people in this country would make the right choice, because the right choice seemed so obvious. They didn’t, and now we must face a future in which the president is no more accountable than a king.

Some would say despair is the more appropriate emotion, and I can’t say I blame them. We should despair, though temporarily, as we are in the process of mourning the loss of what could have been: a future that could have been more equal and more prosperous, a future that could have seen the restoration of individual liberty and justice for all.

And we should mourn, perhaps especially the loss of what we thought America was – the exception to the norm of world history in which tyrants rule with impunity for the law rather than under it.

With this election, we now know with greater clarity than ever before that it can happen here. Authoritarianism has arrived, and it came with a flag and a Bible. As John Harwood said, “voters handed the White House back to a leader devoid of virtue – a deranged, lawless con man who triumphed with a venomous campaign of lies, bigotry and cruelty. Instead of hiding his darkest qualities, Donald Trump emphasized them. A majority of the electorate responded, ‘Yes, please.’”

But here’s why we should talk about joy. The people who are about to enter the White House are planning to do a lot of horrible things. They want to deport millions of migrants; raise prices for everyone with ludicrous tariffs; enrich themselves though exortion and theft; weaponize the Justice Department against perceived enemies; and corrupt government agencies for education, climate and science.

What they want most of all is for you to give up.

They want you to feel alone. They want you to feel like you can’t trust anyone. They want you to feel isolated and afraid and small. They want you to feel like there’s no purpose in practicing democratic politics. They are going to say this election is evidence of that. And they want you to stop flourishing as a human being. Then they got you. You have surrendered. At that point, all you’re doing is existing, not thriving.

That’s why you must feel joy. Not in spite of the tyranny we are about to witness, but because of it. Without joy, there is no hope. Without hope, there is no trust. And without trust, a democratic society collapses under its own weight. They want you to believe nothing matters except power and greed and selfishness. But as long as you protect your joy, something will matter, even if it’s the smallest thing.

And every act of joy is an act of defiance.

In this, I’m drawing inspiration from the Black American tradition, from people who have faced worse than we are facing now and perhaps worse than what we will face. For most of our history, Black citizens were treated like subhumans, in culture, in custom and in law. Yet “the least of these” found the strength to carry on. They found a reason to believe, as Harwood said, “that a critical mass of Americans [can embrace] the values of freedom, pluralism and common sense.”

In the same sentence, Hardwood said the choice voters made Tuesday “defies comprehension.” Americans, he suggests, are supposed to stand up for democracy and the rule of law by dint of being Americans. Harwood added that he feels “embarrassingly naive” for believing that.

But I don’t think he’s naive. Instead, he might be taking past victories for granted, as if the story of American progress unfolded on its own, rather than what happened: people fought hard for their freedom. Sometimes they lost. Sometimes they were murdered. In any case, progress didn’t spring out of “American exceptionalism.” It happened because good people never stopped fighting for what they want.

It’s tempting, perhaps fashionable, to say that America is done. We had a good run, but “the great experiment” is over now. That suggests, however, that the past was better than it was and that the future is knowable. While I yield to no one in my belief that Trump is going to try making the United States a more miserable place to live, I don’t know how exactly, and I don’t know what kind of reaction he’s going to provoke. And in not knowing these things, there’s room for hope.

This is going to be hard. As I’m writing this, a federal judge “paused” the case against Donald Trump in which he stands accused of crimes committed during the J6 insurrection. The president-elect is now untouchable, if not infallible. He’s said to be planning mass pardons of insurgents who sacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. A traitor can become a patriot if he gets enough people to vote for him. Traitors can be heroes if the leader of their mutiny is above the law. What we are witnessing is a perversion of morality and equal treatment under law.