How Can This Be Happening?

How is this even close?

Much is made of a widespread state of deep consternation among Harris voters as Election Day approaches. In the press and online chatter platforms, you see no shortage of articles and admissions of angst over the latest poll numbers or some other seemingly portentous tea leaves. 

From my own unscientific surveys of family and friends, these worries are certainly pervasive. And most of them start with a question we are fearful to even utter: “Could he (who should not be named) really actually win?” We know that answer is a terrifying yes. 

Who will be our next president is the most important concern. The very future of this nation is at risk. Another Trump term would cascade us into a series of probable horrors. This moment is so dire that Harris has compiled a spectrum of support that is unprecedented. 

It’s a coalition that stretches from Dick and Liz Cheney, along with hundreds of McCain, Bush, and Romney staffers, to billionaire capitalists like Mark Cuban, to national security leaders, to celebrities like Taylor Swift, and to left-wing icons like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. This isn’t just a big tent—it’s gargantuan. And for the most part, these aren’t tepid supporters; they’re all in. And so are the millions of donors, from the very small to the very large, who have given over a billion dollars to the Harris-Walz campaign in just the last three months. 

But here’s where I think there’s a deeper layer to the fear, anxiety, and disbelief among Harris supporters. With all this support, with so many seeing this election as an existential threat, how is it even close?

And from that question, many more follow:

• What does it say about our country and our fellow citizens that so many want to hand this vile man power again? 

• Why are they okay with his increasingly virulent fascist rhetoric? 

• Don’t they remember the chaos he caused? 

• Do they really look at his cruelty, immorality, and narcissism and think, these are the qualities I want my children to see? 

• Do they understand his policy mumblings are vindictive and wildly incoherent?

• Don’t they see his obvious mental decline?

• Are they simply not seeing the truth, or do they actually like what they see? 

• Was this always who people were? 

• How can this be happening?

Undoubtedly, many of you could add to this list.

To be sure, there’s no shortage of hypotheses for why we are where we are:

There’s pent-up economic anxiety (justified, mind you). Our social media ecosystems push conspiracy theories, lies, and outrage. The media covers the horse race instead of the stakes. 

People have short attention spans and have forgotten how bad he was. Trump has capitalized on a decades-long effort by Republicans to discredit expertise, science, and government itself. 

Then there are even less charitable explanations. His support shows how many people are simply greedy, racist, misogynistic, and, to borrow a term from Hillary Clinton, “deplorable.”

The fact that many tens of millions of people will vote for Trump means that there can’t be one or two simple explanations for what’s driving all of them. But in the end, it’s a binary choice. And we cannot look away from the fact that all of these people, some of whom many of you likely know well, will decide that they prefer an America under Trump than under Harris. 

We often hear that there was a time, before Trump, where we could agree across our policy divides that, despite the differences we held, we at least all believed in the basic tenets of democracy and the peaceful transfer of power. 

That no longer seems to hold. And it is ominous. 

However, and this I think is key, it is also essential that we don’t fall into Trump’s trap of mythologizing America’s past. It wasn’t that long ago that American “democracy” included widespread disenfranchisement of Black people and other minorities. It included Japanese internment. And for most of our history, elected office was almost exclusively the domain of white men. And on and on. 

American democracy has never been perfect and its flaws reverberate still. Take the Electoral College, for example.

At best, we should find strength in previous movements of progress. For all the legions of Trump acolytes and cheerleaders, think also about the coalition I referenced earlier that is coalescing around Harris. They represent a force for the future that doesn’t only protect the flawed status quo of our American experiment. There is a loud and proud movement for a more perfect union.

I remain hopeful because I am in awe of and am inspired by an army of action that has amassed to push back against the darkness. Now is a moment to lean on our strength and forge forward, together, into the unyielding fight for our nation’s future.