On Jan. 20, President-elect Donald Trump will take on the executive mantle for the second time. After a tumultuous election cycle filled with criminal convictions and candidate dropouts, the United States has ended up in the same place it was eight years ago: with Trump in office and millions of people grappling with what to do next.
It’s easy to ask where the nation went wrong this past November. Reelecting a now-convicted felon and comparatively unsuccessful president to the Oval Office was an unwise decision for the future of the American people. His plans for the economy are inept, his rhetoric on immigration flip-flops and his climate plans are dangerous. It’s difficult to imagine why 77 million voters chose him to be the leader of the free world. But one thing is true: America deserves what is coming these next four years.
The United States of America is, more than anything, defined by its people. In a country with over 340 million residents — of which three-quarters are over the age of 18 — the fact that a majority of eligible voters selected Donald Trump as their president means something. Additionally, Trump was the first Republican in 20 years to win the popular vote, a historic turning point for the American political conscience. America’s majoritarian principle, a beacon of the “consent of the governed,” made a fateful decision at the ballot box this last fall. A majority of Americans wanted him, so — by that simplistic logic — America deserves him.
The United States and its institutions abide by certain codes of conduct. They are founded upon mutual respect and individual responsibility, with an emphasis on professionalism and democracy. Trump — a convicted felon, sexual abuser and riot-inciter — is completely antithetical to these ideas. Headlines and online postings galore have spread this news across the country, making it hard to believe that any citizen would be uninformed about how this former — and future — president behaved incongruently to the Constitution. Even still, he was reelected.
Donald Trump won’t only become president next Monday, but will once again become the manager of the Republican party. Republicans have also strayed from the principles they claim to hold dear, and they too were rewarded. Republicans claim to value “common sense” and tradition, but their leader is nonsensical and unorthodox. The GOP reflects the nature of the American people, equivocators who say they appreciate the goodness of what America can be — in reality, they are anything but.
In recent years, the American people have experienced a backslide in the practice of empathy and taking responsibility. As the rich get richer and people get sadder, an ideal nation would make political choices that can eliminate these hurdles. But, incidentally, we haven’t. Instead, we’ve elected a political figure and his lackeys who directly contribute to rising anxieties. The landslide victory of Trump is a direct reflection of where our country currently stands, which is a state of selfishness and arrogance. We deserve this upcoming term because we — whether we like it or not — embody its leader’s qualities.
Democrats may attest that they are absolutely unlike Donald Trump, but it was their similarly self-serving tendencies that contributed to their defeat. To start, President Joe Biden ran for a second term at the age of 81, then refused to drop out despite popular demand. Additionally, Democrats have failed to take accountability for their misguided campaign and have become a party of billionaire devotees. Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign paid particular attention to painting herself as Trump’s antithesis, focusing on who she wasn’t, not who she was. But, in some regards, it was difficult to separate the two.
It could be unfair to say that all Americans deserve what is coming to them. People of Color, members of the LGBTQ+ community, women and immigrants are all at great risk under a Trump presidency. But this deservedness is not confined to individual people and marginalized communities: It’s a symptom of America as a governing body, as a national collective. America has shown us what it really is — a forgetful, insensitive nation. We have failed to remember what Trump did to the country during his previous tenure and refuse to acknowledge the damage he could do in his next.
This past November, America made a choice. And now, for the next four years, we will be forced to reckon with that decision. Whether it be those Republicans who voted in favor of a deceitful crook or those Democrats who failed to conduct a proper campaign, all of us must recognize that we have come to a crossroads in American history. Our collective inability to take the blame or recognize our severe lack of principle squanders any and all of our credibility. The first Trump presidency cost us the ideals America was founded upon, and we are no longer the country of promoting “general welfare” or protecting the republic. The inauguration doesn’t just signify the beginning of a new presidency, but also the start of a deep period of questioning. How did we get here, and where do we go next?
We already know the answer to the first question: We’ve always been here. The United States, since its birth, has been a country dedicated to individual advancement at the expense of justice. The earliest Americans were focused on protecting themselves, not serving the will of the group. Trump is the embodiment of this unbecoming yet real American ideal. As to where we go next, we must understand this: We all did wrong, and there aren’t any immediate remedies to this dilemma. All we can do now is recognize that, at its core, America wanted and deserved this outcome. Donald Trump is a representation of our country’s past and present, but if we work to overcome the unconscious afflictions that brought us here, he doesn’t have to be our future.
Lindsey Spencer is an Opinion Columnist whose column “The American Cynic” talks politics, power and people. She can be reached at lindssp@umich.edu, but only if you’re nice.
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