Tens of millions of Americans voted against Donald Trump and the cruelty he celebrates. None of us have to see the election as a vindication of his contempt for democracy, basic decency, and anyone who disagrees with him. In our constitutional democracy, there is never a final election, there is always another day, and it is indisputably legitimate to speak up and criticize those in elected office, including the president.
Today, we doubt these basic truths because we know Trump seeks to undo them. He has made clear that he wants to rule as an American Putin. That is certainly his goal, and we cannot pretend otherwise. But we need not accept this or conclude it is inevitable. There is no guarantee he succeeds, and we must use all legal and peaceful means available to us in order to stand in his way and to insist on the enduring primacy of our democratic values and our constitutional system.
The fact that most voters preferred Trump does not mean what is immoral is now moral, what is obscene is now respectable.
Trump sneers at the cherished principles that truly make the United States great—the rule of law, racial equality, equality of men and women, constitutional rights like freedom of speech and due process, free and fair elections, and the notion of limits on power that make government officials public servants advancing the national interest rather than kleptocrats seeking to line their own pockets. Those who reject what Trump stands for must defend these principles and insist on the centrality of distinctions between right and wrong, even as Trump seeks to eviscerate the very notion of morality.
Consider the basic moral concepts we learned as children. Bullies are bad. Lying is wrong. You don’t insult someone else, and especially not because of how they look or where they come from. Trump embodies each and every one of these immoral traits. He is a schoolyard bully who delights in crude insults, which I will not repeat but which we have all heard so many times that we may have become desensitized to these outrages. Yet we know what he has said, and we know who he is. We know that he degrades and demeans women, immigrants, people of color, people with disabilities—indeed, anyone who is different from him and anyone who dares to disagree with him. No elementary school teacher would tolerate such behavior from a student, and we can never accept such moral failure from a person placed in a position of public trust.
Those who Trump insults, mocks, and derides are human beings, although he smears them as “vermin,” “dogs,” and “animals,” words that are obviously intended to dehumanize. Indeed, he has quite literally said that some immigrants are “not people.” He will not extend to others the basic courtesies and respect that decent people instinctively extend to co-workers, members of the community, and indeed all human beings. Trump’s goal is to mark us as second-class citizens—at best. He does not have this power unless we cede it to him or unless others, especially other government officials, defer to him. There is very little Trump can accomplish on his own and, although he feels no sense of shame, some of those he will ask to carry out his plans may. We must remind them that there is a difference between right and wrong, and that morality matters. We must remember that, even if some of us do not seem to be the initial targets of Trump’s wrath, we must stand with those who are most vulnerable, recognizing that when cruelty singles out one group, we do not know where it will end.
We have lived with all of this for nearly a decade, and we are tired. We are sick of Trump’s bullying, his lack of decency, his preening egotism and constant demand for adulation. We hoped that all of this could be placed in our past. Instead, it continues to be our reality. Some will ask us to reconcile with this, to accept it. We need not do either. This is what it means to be free. We certainly should not adopt Trump’s own tactics. We must refuse to embrace the politics of personal insults, bullying, and hatred. Yet we must continue to insist it is wrong when Trump does these things, and that, even though it has now become normal, making cruelty normal is a rejection of our most fundamental principles that we can never accept. Trump won an election—an election where nearly half of voters rejected his tired, blustering act. The fact that most voters preferred Trump does not mean what is immoral is now moral, what is obscene is now respectable. The celebration of disrespect and indecency will never be right. No election can change that.
