Are We Pointing Fingers?

Let's see this for what it is

Should we be deeply fearful about what we’re seeing? Is the rapid embrace of cranks, crooks, con artists, charlatans, and agents of cruelty, corruption, and coercion a direct threat to the future of this nation?

Of course.

But we should not be shocked that we have a president-elect unleashing the vindictive, autocratic, destructive, and chaotic forces he promised during the campaign. And none of this should be a surprise, considering his first term in office and the violent ignominy with which that ended.

Fool us once? Shame on you. Fool us twice? Well, the shame is very much on the American people.

In the blame game that has ensued among the millions who knew exactly who this man was and shouted about it into the apparent void, there is a deep debate about how we got here. Much of the focus is on the Harris campaign, the messaging, and tactics. There is also discussion about the Biden presidency and the alarm bells that went unheeded.

But all this finger-pointing feels a bit picayune, considering that the man who is returning to the White House is doing his own pointing of fingers — an extended middle digit to American democracy.

It is natural that our frames of reference in making sense of this crisis are predominantly those of this moment and the recent past. These experiences feel closest, most immediate, and best remembered. But as I watch events unfold that are often being called “unprecedented,” I see larger historical forces at play.

We often hear that Trump took over the Republican Party and bent it to his MAGA will. According to this view, most of the outrage we see today is a product of the last decade.

I think that’s rubbish. As long as we’re pointing fingers, we should start far upstream.

Are many of Trump’s cabinet picks supremely unqualified? Of course. Alaska’s Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski even dismissed Matt Gaetz for attorney general as an “unserious candidate.” Well, Senator, what about the choice of your fellow Alaskan Sarah Palin for the vice presidency in 2008?

Are the anti-science rantings of Robert Kennedy, Jr. surprising from a party that has been denying the global climate crisis for decades?

Are the racist appeals about immigrants stealing pets to eat really so different from the infamous, and very much racist, Willie Horton advertisement from 1988?

Long before Trump’s dark appeals to “law and order,” Nixon weaponized that rhetoric to sow division and fear.

The performative spectacle of Republicans in Congress follows the playbook first laid out by Newt Gingrich in the 1990s.

Is a reckless foreign policy surprising from a party that sold the disastrous Iraq War based on lies?

We have faux populism backed by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, and a large cohort of other cynical billionaires. It is all reminiscent of the Tea Party “movement” funded by the Koch Brothers. 

The gutting of environmental regulations is standard Republican orthodoxy.

Massive tax cuts for the wealthy and cutting support for the social safety net? That’s the definition of Reaganomics.

You know who else wanted to abolish the Department of Education? Bob Dole when he ran for president in 1996.

The “America First” slogan was championed by the Ku Klux Klan and American Nazi sympathizers before World War II.

Is it surprising that the political party that brought us Watergate now cozies up to dirty tricks and the perversion of clean government?

The cruelty, grievance-laden whining, and scorched-earth rhetoric in right-wing media today merely echoes the wrecking ball Rush Limbaugh took to civil discourse.

The list could go on, but you get the point.

The truth is, what we see now is less an aberration than an outgrowth of poisonous seeds planted long ago. I appreciate the former Republicans now joining the fight for the American Republic. But where were you when your party reaped the benefits of the “Southern Strategy?” Or when Jesse Helms chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee?

If we’re honest about how we got here, we have to look further back. The nation’s constitution enshrined violent racism and universal misogyny, and it promoted undemocratic systems like the Electoral College.

In many ways, what Trump has done is expose the rot that has always plagued this country beneath the veneer of liberal democracy. When one looks at our plight in these terms, it becomes clearer what the Harris campaign was up against—and why the struggle for the future is all the more essential.

This is generational, not just of-the-moment.

To fix what is so obviously broken means more than just rejecting one pathetic man and his sycophants and enablers. It’s not about simply staying true to our ideals; it’s about remaking this nation in fundamental ways.

We aren’t just defending American democracy; we’re reimagining it to work better for everyone.

What gives me hope is that this fight is crystal clear for millions of us who are committed to facing a challenge we did not ask for but have no choice but to accept.