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America’s dark night of the soul
Donald Trump has been re-elected President of the United States. This is not a sentence anyone thought they would be typing four years on from January 6th 2021, a moment marked in infamy. That he beat Kamala Harris in the popular vote as well as the electoral college shows his faithful did not care about his many crimes and misdemeanours, some of which were high indeed. In re-electing him his core base drove a stake into the American project, not quite fatal, but big enough to cause a long dark night of the soul.
Why and how this happened will be argued over for the next four years and beyond. Much like his defeat of Hillary Clinton in 2016 this victory will be tossed over searching for clues as to why reason was trumped by banality. The obvious answer is that too few Democratic voters came out and voted, 10 million less that 2020, while Republicans saw the election as an existential threat to their mode of thinking. Harris was a laudable candidate, yet Trump’s unwavering supporters saw no reason to switch from the man they have flocked to. When morality and the rule of law are banished to the shadows it is minorities and those without power who suffer, and Trump’s voters are certain they will not be the ones to suffer under his renewed administration.
There is already plenty of arguments about Harris’ positions being undermined by lack of engagement, a weak…
