We Won't Go Back
How the Biden Administration has served as a break of sorts from the Fascist Onslaught
I keep seeing political signs and Facebook posts saying, ‘We won’t go back.’ I say Amen to that. But the fact that we have the luxury of looking in the rear view mirror at a 1 term Trump administration may be our saving grace in the long run.
Most autocrats win the election and then gradually consolidate power until that power is absolute. Then they either go to war, start a reign of terror, or do both. But we were spared some of the consolidating power part because Trump lost and his attempts to hold onto power via the January 6th riot on the Capitol, coupled with the fake electors schemes, didn’t work.
The most unlikely hero in US history, Mike Pence, stood up to the angry mob and the man who spurred them on. The man who tried to have him killed. The former President and convicted felon, Donald Trump. The Republican nominee for President in 2024.
So he left power, however unwillingly. And we got a needed reprieve. We had time for Congressional hearings and federal and state grand juries and charges and even some convictions. And yet the current race is still neck and neck. The Biden administration had a pretty good record and still we are hoping to barely beat back this fascist onslaught. And if we do, it will be partly due to the break and the juxtaposition of a hopeful and positive message after a decade of manufactured division.
Donald Trump has dominated our culture for the last 10 years in a way no person has done in our nation’s history. Even FDR with his 12 years in office and sweeping New Deal legislation, WW2 heroism and fireside chats didn’t reshape the culture as much, though he did shape our nation for the better.
After 10 years, I think most of us are as sick and tired of Trump as is possible. But if he had won in 2020 or held onto power, we would not be in a position to do anything about it. We’d be in a de facto dictatorship. We’d be watching Trump consolidate power as he rationalized increasingly draconian punishments for his detractors. But we got lucky. He lost and his attempts to hold onto power were thwarted. You’d think with a second opportunity, they will figure out how to do it right. And they just might.
So especially with VP Harris now leading the ticket, we see a vibrant alternative to this darkness. We see how a bully acts when he doesn’t think he can win. We hear his ramblings, his threats, fear-mongering. And it just doesn’t land. Because we’ve seen this act before.
Most nations in the throes of an attempted authoritarian takeover don’t get this window. We get to revisit the question, thankfully.
We get to watch the bloom fade from Trump’s speeches. We get to watch as a tyrant and a criminal mind keeps racking up more crimes, more hate speech, more calls to violence. And it will never end until he is held accountable. And other opportunists will pop up until they see him held to account. Such is the desire for so many willing imbeciles to lick boots. Such is the fascination with macho bread and circuses. Such is the emptiness of late-stage capitalism and a taken-for-granted democracy.
Such is the hollow soullessness that sees no goal worth fighting for, sacrificing for. Better to watch it all burn and warm one’s hands by the fire.
But we get the chance to side-step all that. Perhaps it is our institutions that saved us. Maybe it’s those courageous Republicans who worked in the Trump administration and spoke up, who said no to the angry mob. Those who got their own attorney and changed their testimony. Those who tanked their own promising careers to co-chair the January 6th committee. Because it was right. Honorable. American.
I thank everyone who has been courageous in the face of fear and threats and actual violence. And we’re not even there yet. We haven’t won the popular vote yet. We don’t have the electoral college votes yet. We haven’t gotten past the certification hurdles that will inevitably arise. But we have hope. Because we are getting the opportunity to revisit the question, “Do we want to be a free people?” We are lucky to be a still free people. We take that status lightly at our own peril.