I Can’t Trust Americans Anymore

Vice President Kamala Harris approaches the podium for her concession speech, 11/6/2024

The Associated Press called the 2024 Presidential election for Donald Trump at 3:30 a.m. where I live, and I’m ashamed to say I was awake for it. And this time, he won without the asterisk that followed his name in 2016: he became the first President Elect to win with a simple majority since Barack Obama, and only the second Republican to win outright since George H.W. Bush in 1988. A majority of Americans who could be arsed to vote, voted for this friggin’ guy.

This means that 71 million Americans (as I write) watched him promise to make it harder to be Black, Brown, gay, disabled, a woman, or a dissident, and decided they wanted that. They heard him promise to use the military to purge citizens he considered disloyal, and considered it acceptable. They heard him threaten to shoot members of his own party in the face, and said “Okay.” They watched him fellate a microphone before a mixed-age crowd, and bought what he was selling.

Edit: in light of new evidence, it appears that Trump did not win an outright majority. Though he came first in the popular vote, continuing counts indicate that he fell short of the 50% threshold.

Even beyond the policies he’s promised to enact, policies which are already costing lives, his comportment in public should be disqualifying. His revolting language about women, minorities, and nonconformists basically means that he’s expressed hatred toward someone you know, possibly someone you love. And tens of millions of Americans considered that acceptable, handing him the nuclear codes. Nothing he’s done in public dissuaded American voters.

Laying aside the question of whether he will, or even could, do everything he’s promised to do, I’m left staring at my fellow Americans, wondering what possessed us to accept this. Because he received a simple majority, a relative rarity in Presidential politics, that means that over half of voters willingly put their names behind Trump’s actions. Shielded by the anonymity of the ballot box, they gave their endorsement to everything he’s done and said for nine years.

In light of this endorsement, I’m forced to ask myself: how can I trust anyone I meet again? When meeting an adult American now, I’ll forever remain conscious that there’s a better-than-even chance this person voted for Donald Trump. Forevermore, I’ll shake hands with potential employers, contractors, landlords, new friends, dates, and ask myself: did this person vote to force my gay friends into conversion therapy? To kick my disabled friends off the payroll?

To grant the police qualified immunity in shooting my Black friends?

Okay, in fairness, not everybody will have equal odds in this sweepstakes. We know, for instance, that men were more likely to support Trump than women. We know that White people, including White women, supported Trump by wide margins. This only increases my tendency, growing since my middle twenties, to reflexively distrust White men. And I say this as a White man, that I belong to perhaps the least trustworthy demographic in America today.

Exit polls have shown several demographic breakdowns, though readers should handle such results cautiously, considering how many voters openly distrust media and pollsters. Age, race, sex, peak educational achievement, population density, and economic class played into it. Broadly stated, the older, whiter, more rural, and less financially certain someone was, the more likely they’d support Trump, and his anger-based campaign pledges.

Again, I’m incriminating myself. Among the demographic divisions that increase one’s likelihood to support Trump, I belong to most. This means I’m arguing against my own interest here. I could easily lapse into tranquility, go with the flow like a dead fish, and do okay with the upcoming administration. People who look like me probably won’t face federal pushback, if I placidly participate. Only my willingness to oppose puts me at meaningful risk.

But from that privileged position, I regard my protected status as a responsibility, not a cocoon. Too many of my fellow pasty-faced honky dudes see their position as something which needs defended, a bastion against constant attack by barbarian hordes who want our creature comforts. Given the opportunity to use our gifts to improve the world for everyone, White men have chosen to retrench ourselves, and live in a state of constant paranoia. And it shows.

I’ve read Robert O. Paxton and Timothy Snyder. Within the sloppy, vague boundaries of small-F fascism, Donald Trump meets the definition. And, as a fascist, Trump has accomplished something neither Mussolini nor Hitler accomplished: he won a straight majority. We American voters, mostly White, mostly male, and disproportionately Christian, have thrown our support behind a fascist in ways completely unprecedented. No matter what happens, we won’t walk this back easily.