In my Independence Day column last year, I predicted this if Donald Trump got back in the White House: “Prosecutions will warp into persecutions. Political foes, real and imagined, in the press and online and in the politicians’ suites, will be subjected to Trump’s whims and power. Pardons and clemency will rain down like manna on Jan. 6, 2021, insurrectionists. Russian President Vladimir Putin will once again have a friend in the White House and an ally against NATO and the West. Immigrants and people from Muslim-majority countries will face an aggressively hostile federal government. Civil rights and LGBTQ+ progress will grind to a halt. The economy will function on behalf of the haves, to the detriment of the have-nots and the left-out.”
I had no crystal ball at hand. Only Trump’s own record, his musings on the campaign trail and the words of his inner circle.
I urged voters, regardless of who headed the Democratic ticket, to concentrate on defeating Trump and regaining Democratic control of the House and preventing a GOP takeover in the Senate. “Can you imagine,” I asked, “a Republican House doing anything to rein Trump in? A Republican Senate doing anything but acquiescing to any underqualified, politically subservient appointment he chooses to make?”
I take no pleasure in recalling those thoughts. In fact, they are painful, because it’s all coming to pass.
But did it have to turn out this way?
Given the outcome of last November’s presidential election, it seems like not many people were paying attention to my column—or the reporting by many other journalists.
But maybe there was more at work then, as is at work now.
Election Day, of course, was searing. Vice President Kamala Harris went down hard at the polls.
And Trump, as mendacious, narcissistic and vengeful as ever, went up on top with the highest percentage of votes he received in his three runs for the presidency. (But still not a majority.)
Trump even hit an Election Day grand slam, not only capturing the White House but also regaining a Republican Senate majority and retaining Republican control of the House.
So now we have a country driven by the same invidious ideas Trump stoked during his presidential campaign. Namely: that migrants of color who have fled to this country in search of a better life ought to be treated harshly because their kind doesn’t belong here; that policies and programs in government, corporate and education sectors that foster diversity and inclusion are inherently evil and ought to be destroyed root, branch, and stem; that people with different sexual orientations, racial identities or cultural perspectives deserve resentment for confronting the country with those infuriating facts; that America’s underserved are, in fact, undeserving, and government at all levels should be condemned for giving them too much damn attention; that dictatorial rival Russia, invader of Ukraine, should be treated with far more respect and friendship than our longtime democratic allies; and that Trump, as sovereign, should be allowed to do anything he wants, no matter how destructive, vindictive or senseless.
The problem is, we knew all that last year. And we see it, obediently endorsed and implemented by his political sycophants, at work today.
Meanwhile, responsible media across the country, continues to cover the wreckage and convey alternatives.
So why are congenitally disorganized Democratic Party leaders no better fortified or able to beat back Trump’s assaults today— or advance ideas, alternatives, and solutions of their own—than they were in the past?
Are people still not paying attention?
(Colbert I. “Colby” King writes a column—sometimes about Washington, sometimes about politics. In 2003, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary.)
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