A Post-Trump America
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On January 20th, 2021, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be sworn in as the next President and Vice President of the United States.
Feels good to type that out, and I’m sure it feels even better to read, especially for those who belong to marginalized communities, anyone who has seen their rights threatened or outright lost, and those who simply felt less safe in a country that actively embraced and reveled in cruelty, racism, misogyny, and authoritarianism.
It’s why people of all cultural stripes danced together, in the middle of a pandemic, not just in cities across the country, but in cities across the world. It wasn’t just because of Harris’ historic, glass ceiling-breaking accomplishment of being the first woman, black woman, and woman of South Asian descent to hold the title of Vice President.
Getting rid of the worst president in modern American history is - ironically, to quote our next president out of context - “a big fucking deal.”
While there’s still two months remaining in our current hellscape (plenty of time to inflict more damage, to be sure), we should look to the not so distant future and imagine what a Post-Trump America looks like.
There’s both good and bad to such a reality, but because I’m personally still in a jubilant mood, I’ll start with the good first.
The good news starts with the obvious. An America without Donald Trump as president is instantaneously a much better America.
No more tweet storms trying to pass off as policy. No more feuding with teenaged girls online. No more hateful, inflammatory rhetoric that energizes the worst of our countrymen. No more peddling conspiracy theories. No more destroying of democratic norms that both erode faith in our institutions and the actual institutions themselves. No more being a global punchline. No more objectively awful cabinet members. No more objectively awful family members. This matters.
What does that look like policy wise? It means no more Muslim ban. It means DACA kids are safe. It means no more caging of migrant children. It means actually trying to reunite said children with their families. It means rejoining the Paris Agreement. It means actually working to fight climate change. It means no more cozying up to dictators, or looking the other way on their atrocities because it benefits our president monetarily to do so. It means rebuilding relationships with our closest allies. It means not pulling out of NATO, or the WHO (during a global fucking pandemic). It means the implementation of an actual coronavirus task force to finally get a handle on said pandemic.
Absolutely none of those things require the help of what will most likely be a fractured congress (more on that later). All of the aforementioned moves just require the signature of the incoming president.
Reversing some of the Trump administration’s most craven and darkest policies is an objective win. Filling our cabinet with competent, decent human beings who listen to facts and science, who recognize our leadership position in the world, and who won’t succumb to the whims of a reality show host whose main objectives were to undo his predecessor’s legacy and “own the libs” is a global win.
So, it cannot be understated - the best part of a Post-Trump America is that it is an America without Trump.
Trumpism, however, is very much alive and well, and unfortunately, it’s here where I’ll begin listing some of the negatives of an America without Trump as president.
While the majority of voters elected Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as our next leaders, very many didn’t. Roughly 70 million, in fact.
After four years of complete and utter horror, Trump actually got more votes than he did in 2016.
In the four years since that fateful November night - a lot of Americans refused to face reality. Our neighbors weren’t terrible people. They simply just didn’t like Hillary Clinton. Conservative media had spent twenty years soiling her name - that’s why she was unpopular. They had “economic anxiety.” They felt they were being left out of a growing economy, and inexplicably convinced themselves a New York billionaire would fight for them. They were had. They had been conned. Blame conservative media and a savvy Russian disinformation campaign. Surely, four years of seeing Trump embrace white supremacy, enact cruel policies, and ignore a pandemic that killed a quarter of a million people and tank our economy in the process would open their eyes to the truth. Trump was, and would be, an aberration.
Except he wasn’t, and he isn’t.
The data is clear now. A significant chunk of Americans like what Trump stands for. They like the policies he’s enacted. They wanted four more years of it.
That’s a very uncomfortable fact that the incoming administration, and everyday citizens alike will have to grapple with, for years, if not decades to come, and to be honest, I don’t even know where you begin to bring both sides together.
When Trump himself is long gone, either serving time for financial crimes, or hosting a show on a newly created network, other politicians will use him as the blueprint to winning the electoral college in the face of a country that is becoming younger, browner, and more progressive.
Pry open and lean into America’s deepest, darkest wounds. Appeal to white grievance, weaponize fear and hate, and run a campaign based on hurting and demoralizing your opponent’s base. That’s the Republican strategy going forward. It’s the only way they can maintain power and minority rule in a rapidly changing country.
The MAGA fanatics in military cosplay, who terrorize people by brandishing assault rifles as they ride through neighborhoods in pickup trucks decorated in Trump swag aren’t suddenly going to stop doing so. If anything, they may see this upcoming moment as a reason to get more hostile - especially if they believe in the conspiracy theory that the Democrats stole the election from their savior.
The Trump appointed judges Republicans packed the courts with aren’t going anywhere, either. Nor are the three unqualified, partisan hacks Trump appointed to the Supreme Court to lifetime appointments.
The senate will still be the senate, most likely led by Mitch McConnell (if Democrats don’t win the run-off races in Georgia), who has absolutely no incentive or willingness to work with the other side. Republican senators will obstruct any and every piece of democratic legislation brought to their desks. They’ll refuse to hear nominations for cabinet appointments, possible SCOTUS vacancies, and lower court fillings. Their goal will be to make the Biden presidency a one-term, failed administration.
In addition to those realities, we’re still living under a pandemic. One that, as stated before, will hopefully be reigned in by a competent administration - but with the wearing of masks being politicized, and Republican governors itching to give their demoralized base some red meat by possibly ignoring Biden’s coronavirus plans - it’s going to be an uphill climb.
All of this to say - politics are a funny thing, and the tides change constantly. Like basketball, it’s a game of momentum swings. Biden will be walking into office having received the most votes in the history of this country. There are Republicans in purple or even blue districts, whose jobs will be in jeopardy if they don’t compromise with the incoming administration, and again, there are a handful of things Biden can do without the approval of congress, if it should get to that point.
While the situation overall is far from ideal, I remain optimistic. It’s not going to be an easy path forward, but the biggest, most important step has been accomplished. The American people fired Donald Trump. With him out of the way, a clearer path is made possible.