Americans were faced with a difficult choice in Tuesday’s presidential election. No matter who won, there were bound to be deep reservations among many in the country about whether the electorate had made a huge mistake.
At least, though, the decisive margin of Donald Trump’s victory over Kamala Harris will avoid a repeat of the incessant legal challenges, the assault on the Capitol and the refusal to accept the truth that marked Trump’s defeat four years ago.
For all of the Republican’s character deficits and some of his flawed policy positions, such as steep tariffs on imported goods that will only drive up the costs to U.S. consumers, Trump is a masterful and shrewd campaigner, even if an often dishonest one.
He has repeatedly been able to transform setbacks that would undermine most politicians into advantages. He was able to parlay two impeachments and four criminal indictments into “proof” of his alleged victimization. Even his scowling Atlanta jailhouse mugshot was turned into a proud symbol of defiance rather than an embarrassment.
Two assassination attempts, including one that came very close to being fatal, solidified his support among his most dedicated backers and won him sympathy from those who had been wavering.
Trump was helped along, of course, by the Democrats. They refused to push a doddering Joe Biden out until it was too late, and then, with few other options remaining, replaced him with his running mate, Harris, a candidate who had not proven that she was up to the pressures and microscope of a presidential race. Although she is much more stable and temperate than Trump, the voters were obviously more concerned with policies than character, and Harris was unable to convince them that, if elected, she would moderate her far-left leanings on abortion, gender identity, immigration and other areas in which she was out of touch with the majority of Americans. She also struggled to distance herself from Biden, whose popularity tanked and never recovered from the surge in inflation that marked his first two years in office.
As a result, not only did Trump become only the second former president to return to the White House, but he did so in convincing fashion. He appears to have won all seven of the so-called swing states to comfortably take the electoral vote, and he also won the popular vote for the first time. Plus, riding his coattails, the Senate flipped to the Republicans with a relatively comfortable majority, and the GOP could hold onto the House, giving Republicans the election trifecta.
That is an impressive political triumph, but it also comes with risks. Government generally works best when neither party is too dominant. Power without checks on it tends to be abused. Trump comes into office — if he pursues what he said on the campaign trail — seeking revenge against those who opposed him and prosecuted him. Although he said in the hours after his victory that it was time to put the nation’s divisions aside, it’s hard to believe that he will actually follow that conciliatory path after waging a campaign based on exacerbating and manipulating those divisions within our nation.
Nevertheless, Trump has earned the chance to prove what he can do positively in a second term in office. He won the GOP nomination in a breeze and the general election more comfortably than most had predicted. Many who voted for him either liked his bluster or believed that was just “Trump being Trump,” and that all of the hysteria about him being a threat to democracy was overblown.
Although Trump refused to legitimize Biden’s victory in 2020, those who lost Tuesday should not return the favor. America is not served well by disrespecting the voters’ will. The people have spoken, and their choice should be accepted with grace.
