As Trump and Fox News Crash into Reality, America Shines
By: Kevin Donovan
Tags: Fox, Election, Trump, Dictatorships, Democracy

He hasn’t accepted it yet, but reality has finally arrived for Donald Trump in the form of American democracy. It’s arrival is marked by a cleaving of the Republican Party into two unequal but fluid factions: one we can designate as the pre-Trump/never Trump establishment, the other the pro-Trump faction, which we should begin referring to as Anti-Democrats — as in “anti-democracy” — the group that seeks to inherit Trump’s followers.

This dilemma has undoubtedly set off panic in the Republican party, as those who are still in office (with the exception of those who have just been re-elected) are essentially strapped to the sinking ship that is the Trump presidency. Until Trump concedes, any hint of concession — of respecting the democratic process and joining President-elect Joe Biden in unifying the country — will be met with career-ending retribution. The Trump family is taking names and demanding loyalty oaths from Republicans on Fox News, with the obvious intent of turning their raging Trump base against any who are foolish enough to question the current president’s flailing attempts to hold on to power.

There should be no illusions that the Trump-Fox Alliance and the Republicans they control are firmly against American democracy, revealing their larger opposition to the bedrock values of America. The curtain has been pulled back on what is essentially a rabid and unrelenting operation to maintain power, ignoring the will of the people and all of the principles of equality and fairness upon which our nation was founded. In their never-ending quest to suppress the vote, they’ve further exposed their inability to accept or respect any form of democracy that would deny them power, meaning any system that could be considered a democracy.

For five years, the Trump-Fox Alliance has created its own alternative reality and deluded a critical mass of followers into believing tens of thousands of lies as they cost us hundreds of thousands of lives. It all would have continued at the same pace had the reality of democracy not intruded.

My Democratic desire for a blue tsunami did not materialize, with Republicans seeing gains in the House of Representatives and, at least for now, a hold on the Senate. Joe Biden’s win was extremely narrow — a reminder that our country remains deeply divided. It will be up to Biden to do something that Trump never could: unify America so that we may confront our most urgent problems — Covid-19, climate change, economic inequality, systemic racism, immigration and more. This unity is dependent on what I’ve referred to as Problem #1 — the re-establishment of a common reality. To take just one example of the cost of conflicting realities, if a significant number of people don’t believe that Covid-19 is a serious enough threat to wear a mask, we can never effectively address it. Having a common reality that is grounded in science (aka solving Problem #1) is a prerequisite to progress. And yet, even with the election behind us, the Trump-Fox Alliance will continue to be the greatest obstacle to a return to a common reality.

We have a tough road ahead. This has been a long, painful and costly election cycle, but that is all the more reason why we should also take a breath and bask in the wonders of our democracy, its power, its promise, and the reality it has delivered — a reality that has managed to conquer an endless litany of myths driven by bad faith and authoritarian aspirations.

We should take a moment to look at what we have just accomplished through the eyes of the world; we have done what so many countries have wished for and dreamed of: we have overthrown a dictator through the power of democracy. Make no mistake, Donald Trump was a dictator with authoritarian wishes he sought to fulfill — wishes that were thwarted by the power of democracy and, fortuitously but at great expense, his own incompetence. It was democracy that finally said no, that finally put an end to his efforts to control every branch of government, to appropriate the Justice Department for his self-interested version of “law and order”, to consolidate all government communications with the backing of a state-sanctioned media empire, to enrich his personal business interests through the levers of power, to browbeat government legislators to fall in line and bow to his demands, and to fire all those who had the courage to defy the Trump-Fox Alliance in service to their country.

Although the results of the election are clear, there is still damage being done as each day passes without a concession and half the country lives under the delusion that Trump could still “win”. Trump’s self-interest has always taken precedence over the good of the country; democracy is just an inconvenience to be suppressed or delegitimized en route to continuous power. But even now, with no transition of power underway, we face still another national security risk that takes a back seat to Trump’s fragile ego and pathologies.

This is what authoritarianism looks like, and yet it is being held off by the strength of our institutions. For those who are still convinced that America will now be destroyed by a dark wave of socialism, and especially to the Cuban and Venezuelan refugees with an affinity for Trump, consider that the efforts by your candidate to subvert democracy are exactly the authoritarian behaviors from which you or your predecessors fled your homeland.

Much of the world has far more familiarity with Trump-style authoritarianism than we can imagine, and this is why they were legitimately worried about us. We are still considered the primary example of democracy for those who have modeled their system after ours or aspire to do so. And for Putin’s Russia, Xi’s China, Lukashenko’s Belarus, Orbán’s Hungary, Saudi Arabia’s bin Salman. Kim’s North Korea and other dictators worldwide, this peaceful exercise of the will of the people is a reminder that no one who aspires to be like them will ever achieve their ends in America. As the ballots were methodically and transparently counted, there was no rioting, nobody killed or imprisoned or tortured, no one poisoned or disappeared, no media blackouts, no teargassing of crowds. Our faith and belief in democracy carried us through and managed to overwhelm the desperate anti-democratic minority attempting to stop it.

Just as the failures of democracy bolster the strength of dictators, the peaceful exercising of American democracy puts dictators on edge; the last thing they want is for those who live under them to be inspired by what we have accomplished and for their people to believe they could have a voice in their own governance. This election had particular resonance because so many citizens of oppressed nations saw in Trump the qualities of a dictator. And then they saw us overthrow that dictator.

As Americans, we take this for granted, but we should never forget just how wonderous this is for all of humanity — the ability of a diverse nation of deeply held beliefs and opinions, a collection of over 300 million people, deciding who they would like to lead their country without a drop of blood spilled.

Right now, it is as if Trump is holding himself hostage in the White House and counting on 75 million voters to back down. He will have to come out soon, and the majority of America is comforted by this inevitability and the assurance that we have succeeded in preserving our democracy.

We have a lot of healing to do, but our shining city on a hill is shining a little brighter right now.