Let’s put it this way. The U.S., after all, is my cultural and intellectual home, and I know it well enough to know that there was always a chance that something terrible like this would happen, even if, perhaps, not with such brutal clarity. Thus, I’m not shocked. But I’m devastated.
Besides winning the presidency, the Republicans flipped the Senate, and they seem on track to keep the House. There were several national “trifectas” like this between 1900 and now, when either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party controlled the Oval, the Senate, and the House, already with startling contrasts. (Compare what was achieved in 1943–47, 1961–69, 1977–81, 2009–11, and 2021–23 vs. what happened in 1929–31, 2001–06, and 2017–19). But now, over and above, the Republican Party not only controls hundreds of federal judges and, even worse, federal appellate judges appointed during the 45 administration, but also a Supreme Court stacked with christofascists and riddled with abject corruption, who already granted the president “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution for crimes perpetrated in office. As far as I know, there’s no precedent in modern American history for such a constellation. (Maybe there’s even no precedent in all of American history, but I’m too exhausted to check.) And before long, every administrative position and every chair of every committee will be filled (if at all) with party members (or relatives) whose only qualifications are willful cruelty and servile compliance.
With that, any separation of powers, as well as any checks and balances, will soon be a thing of the past. State rights, enthusiastically championed whenever it fit the agenda, will soon become a battleground. And then there’s the Constitution. Can it be changed without two-thirds supermajorities in Congress? Given the circumstances, it is imaginable that conditions could be created that make this possible.
Besides winning the presidency, the Republicans flipped the Senate, and they seem on track to keep the House. There were several national “trifectas” like this between 1900 and now, when either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party controlled the Oval, the Senate, and the House, already with startling contrasts. (Compare what was achieved in 1943–47, 1961–69, 1977–81, 2009–11, and 2021–23 vs. what happened in 1929–31, 2001–06, and 2017–19). But now, over and above, the Republican Party not only controls hundreds of federal judges and, even worse, federal appellate judges appointed during the 45 administration, but also a Supreme Court stacked with christofascists and riddled with abject corruption, who already granted the president “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution for crimes perpetrated in office. As far as I know, there’s no precedent in modern American history for such a constellation. (Maybe there’s even no precedent in all of American history, but I’m too exhausted to check.) And before long, every administrative position and every chair of every committee will be filled (if at all) with party members (or relatives) whose only qualifications are willful cruelty and servile compliance.
With that, any separation of powers, as well as any checks and balances, will soon be a thing of the past. State rights, enthusiastically championed whenever it fit the agenda, will soon become a battleground. And then there’s the Constitution. Can it be changed without two-thirds supermajorities in Congress? Given the circumstances, it is imaginable that conditions could be created that make this possible.
But even without changing the Constitution, the repercussions will be colossal. Globally for climate action, regionally for East Asia and Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and nationally for every vulnerable group imaginable up to and including women and children in general. For all these, it will get very, very dark.
There’s one aspect of American exceptionalism that isn’t widely known. Every time and everywhere, markedly in Latin American countries, when U.S.-style political systems were introduced in the course of democratization, that system failed. For reasons that are not altogether clear, the U.S. is the only country on earth where U.S.-style democracy has ever worked. And we can well imagine that this exceptional run has come to an end.
And once that has happened, it will be hard to return to anything resembling democracy. Fascism has its well-tested strategies to remain in power, making it harder and harder and eventually impossible for anyone to challenge it. (And it has been hard enough already, including downballot, through voter suppression, gerrymandering, the Electoral College, Citizens United, relentless right-wing propaganda by national and local news empires from Murdoch to Sinclair, the indefensible and unforgivable failure of mainstream media in general and the New York Times in particular, and the abject cowardice of billionaire tech-moguls like Bezos and Zuck.)
To quote Seth Abramson:
There are not just no guardrails now. The American people have just told the two worst men in the United States—Trump and Musk—that the world is their oyster and they can do whatever they like. And because they are the worst of men, they will take that offer. And then some.
Against the national and state level repercussions everyone will fight tooth and nail, of course, and I will support that, again, by throwing money at the ACLU in particular, and also NAACP and similar—the only thing I can do from here.
But, taking the global repercussions into account, our future, I fear, will be bleak everywhere and for all.
J.