Copyright Rolling Stone
This is a deep cut. There’s a solo John Lennon track called “Remember” off the Plastic Ono Band album. He closes it by screaming “Remember the 5th of November!” followed by an explosion. It was a reference to Guy Fawkes Day, marking an infamous plot to blow up the British Parliament in 1605 that ended with the perpetrator’s head on a spike. But that lyric hits a bit different after last year’s presidential election. Because on November 5, 2024, America rewarded a man who tried to blow up our system of government by pushing election lies that incited an attack on our capital. Seen through the eyes of history, it looks like an act of self-immolation by our nation. That’s exactly why we need to be firefighters rather than arsonists to counteract its impact. American democracy is an outlier. We are the world’s longest-lasting large democracy and the first nation founded upon an idea rather than a tribal identity. We’ve always been imperfect people working to form a more perfect union. At the heart of the ideal of American democracy was Abraham Lincoln’s admonition that “right makes might.” It’s such a simple phrase that we often ignore its revolutionary premise: that the law of the jungle can be replaced with the rule of law in a civil society. At its core, Trumpism is the belief that might makes right. Money and power are the coin of the realm, not treating other people as you’d like to be treated. This is intoxicating to its adherents. It empowers their worst impulses. The law of the jungle, too long subsided under the niceties of the liberal order, has been unleashed. We can’t say we weren’t warned. As the New York Times’ opinion page cogently stated before the 2024 election: “Donald Trump says he will prosecute his enemies, order mass deportations, use soldiers against citizens, abandoned allies, play politics with disasters. Believe him.” All this has come to pass. Trump’s voters may have felt they were voting to lower the cost of living, reduce the national debt or combat identity politics that felt like assaults on common sense. They’ve gotten tariffs, unprecedented corruption and an assault on the Constitution while the debt and daily prices keep climbing higher and long-time allies turn to China for trade. Editor’s picks This makes no one happier than authoritarian leaders around the world. They have always viewed liberal democracy as an insufferable pretense. Now they have an American leader who thinks like them, believing that the ends always justify the means. It’s revealed that we are susceptible to the same forces of fear and greed that have propelled demagogues to power throughout history. In the process, Trump has succeeded in doing what they could not do: discrediting the idea of American exceptionalism in the eyes of the world. America became great precisely because we chose — however imperfectly — right over might. Our Constitution, our commitment to democratic ideals, free markets and free people: these are what make us exceptional. When you abandon these principles, you don’t restore greatness. You accelerate decline. This is where the deeper danger sets in. It will be difficult to resist the political temptation to pursue an equal and opposite reaction. There is certainly a need to undo the excesses of the Trump administration. But going forward, strong and decisive action needs to be taken in the direction of rebuilding the guardrails of democracy that have been damaged. Trending Stories That’s why the right response will be a positive, patriotic and inclusive resistance. It will rebuild the middle of our politics and the middle of our economy. It will focus on finding market-based solutions to address the affordability crisis. It will require immigration reforms that strengthen our border while increasing the paths for legal immigration and restoring the value of assimilation. It will expand civics education and advance a new vision of national service. It will also have to fight for political reforms that reign in the power of the imperial executive and find a federal solution to stop the escalating state redistricting wars — accelerated by Trump — which have reduced the number of swing seats in Congress to a few dozen and moved power to the extremes. Related Content
