The election: Four good things and one bad

Full disclosure: In 2016 I voted for Hillary Clinton; in 2020 I voted for Joe Biden; last week I voted for Kamala Harris.

If you’re gathering that I was disappointed in the outcome of the election, you’d be right. Nevertheless, Donald Trump is now my president. He’s yours, too. It’s called democracy.

But let’s consider four good things about the election, as well as one bad thing:

Good Thing No. 1: It may seem contradictory, but I’m glad Donald Trump won the popular vote by more than 3 million votes, as well as the Electoral College. This hasn’t happened for Republicans since George W. Bush beat John Kerry in 2004. But winning both the popular vote and the Electoral College lends a clarity to this election that we wouldn’t have if our antiquated Electoral College had produced a president against the wishes of a disgruntled majority. This election expressed clearly what the majority wants, as a good election should.

Good Thing No. 2 (sort of): If Trump had lost, what would we have done with him? How do we take ourselves seriously as a nation that believes in the rule of law, if, after his defeat, we just ignored all the crimes that Trump is alleged to have committed? On the other hand, the unseemly spectacle of prosecution of a former president for mishandling classified documents and attempting to overthrow our government is not an attractive prospect. With Trump’s victory, that problem goes away. Of course, we still have that little rule-of-law problem.

Good Thing No. 3 (again, sort of): Trump’s victory probably averted a constitutional crisis. Had he lost, it’s clear that he would never have accepted defeat, nor would many of his followers. Systematic plans were already in place to contest the election. A Trump loss could have plunged the country into dangerous chaos. No, my MAGA friends said, we have more to fear from a Trump win: Antifa and Black Lives Matter will take to the streets! Really? Antifa? No, Trump can’t accept defeat, but he has no problem accepting victory, which, at least, made last week look like a normal election. We needed that.

Good Thing No. 4: Trump’s win provides the occasion for the celebration of what the peaceful transfer of power looks like. An indelible image from the 2016 election was President Barack Obama and wife Michelle graciously welcoming Donald and Melania Trump to the White House on inauguration day. That must have been difficult for Obama, given that Trump had questioned Obama’s citizenship and religion and called him the “most ignorant president in our history” and “the founder of ISIS.” “Nasty” Hillary Clinton conceded her loss to Trump and sat through his inauguration, which couldn’t have been easy. President Biden called Trump to congratulate him, invited him to the White House and will attend the inauguration, even though Trump has called Biden “feeble,” “stupid” and “low-IQ.” And imagine the commitment to democracy required for Kamala Harris to congratulate Trump and concede the election, after Trump questioned her race and called her “crazy,” “stupid,” “dumb,” “b——,” “fascist,” “a s—- vice president,” and stood by while others called her a whore. So it’s refreshing to see the losers in this election affirm with grace and dignity their commitment to the peaceful transfer of power. It’s an excellent lesson in democracy. I hope Trump notices.

Bad Thing No. 1: The American people have duly elected someone who tried to overturn an election and who encouraged violence to do so. Trump’s most devoted supporters deny this. But we can be certain that nearly any important Republican who you can think of—Mitch McConnell, Mike Johnson, JD Vance, Ted Cruz, even Steve Bannon—knows full well that Trump lost in 2020. So do you. At some level, I suspect that Trump knows it. It’s an amazing thing to consider that the American people have accepted this.

But they have. A MAGA friend said to me: “Trump may be a fascist, but he’s our fascist.”

He was kidding. I think. But he was right about one thing: This is a Trump nation now. Let’s see what he does with it.