The dangerous road ahead
In 2015 we had conventional wisdom. That conventional wisdom told us the Republicans had some reasonably easily defeatable candidates for president, like Florida governor Jeb Bush. Donald Trump was (hilariously) also a candidate. Then Trump easily beat Bush and the other 18 or so candidates for the nomination. To quote George Clooney, who assured us in 2016, with debonair conventional wisdom and a chuckle, “There’s not going to be a president Donald Trump.” The audience chuckled with him and applauded.
Then, on November 9, 2019, we awoke with the shock of our lives. Donald Trump was president elect. Conventional wisdom then assured us that Trump wouldn’t survive 2017. Some particularly cynical observers dared to suggest he would make it to the end of 2018 but no further. He would be impeached or removed by the 25th amendment. That was the conventional wisdom.
Conventional wisdom also told us that Trump would not be a candidate for a second term, that, because his presidency was such a disaster and that the 2018 Blue Wave had proven he was toxic to the Republican Party, the Republicans would primary him, they would never nominate him again. But nominate him they did. True, he lost, but he lost by a margin absurdly more narrow than conventional wisdom once thought possible.
Conventional wisdom told us Trump would be in prison before the end of 2020, 2021 at the latest. Meanwhile, conventional wisdom told us that the Supreme Court would never — could never — effectively repeal Roe v Wade. That they would never — could never — make Donald Trump immune from prosecution for “official acts,” acts they would deliberately leave vague so they could decide later what they were.
Conventional wisdom told us that, thanks to the January 6 insurrection, Trump would never be a candidate for president ever again. This time it was impossible, the Constitution said so. So did conventional wisdom.
Sometimes I wonder about conventional wisdom. It seems to rely on a particular human folly, the folly that says because something has never happened before it never will. The folly that says America is special, America is too strong, too steeped in tradition to ever abandon its core principles of freedom and democracy.
Conventional wisdom told us that we have the mainstream media on our side to counteract Fox News and its clones. Conventional wisdom told us that Trump is too old and too repellent to be a viable candidate again. Yet here we are, having to fight an election in the margins, in the battleground states.
Yes, Trump will probably lose again this time. I think conventional wisdom is correct about that (but I wouldn’t bet my life on it). But what next? What about 2028 and beyond? Could another Trump emerge from the ashes of the Republican Party? This time, a smarter, younger and stronger Trump clone?
I don’t know and neither do you. If recent history has taught us anything it has taught us (or SHOULD have taught us) that these aren’t just interesting times, they are surreal times. There’s no telling for sure what’s going to happen next. Conventional wisdom be damned. As long as a significant part of the population is insane and an entire political party has joined them in their insanity there is a danger. Anything can happen, and we would be stupid beyond the dreams of stupidity not to be ready for any eventuality.
We need a political version of the fictional Winston Wolf from “Pulp Fiction.” We have some serious problems and they need to be solved. We have global warming, a subversive, terroristic Supreme Court, a MAGA movement as dangerous to America as the Nazis were to Germany and state legislatures with too much power and political agendas that look like something straight out of “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
Kamala Harris cannot be a conventional president. She must be a radical president. And she has four years to solve our problems. We cannot afford to risk anything less than that. I believe Kamala is equal to the task. But I do not envy that task.
If you doubt all this, brothers and sisters, try a little thought experiment. Imagine jumping into a time machine, going back to 2014 and telling people what the next ten years was going to look like. They would lock you up. Now imagine listening to a time traveller from 2034. You get the idea.
I think we could have stopped Donald Trump cold in 2015 if we had taken his danger more seriously. It’s time to take the danger of what Republicans could do more seriously this time. In short, it’s time for us to do what we have never done before. It’s time for us, finally, to learn from history. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.