Trump Sent a Warning. Let’s Take It Seriously.
Our
democracy is in terrible danger — more than in 1861, more than after Pearl
Harbor, more than during the Cuban missile crisis.
Opinion
Columnist
·
Sept. 29, 2020, 7:40 p.m. ET
President Trump has now made it
unmistakably clear that there are only two choices before voters on Nov. 3 —
and electing Joe Biden is not one of them.
The president has told us in
innumerable ways that either he will be re-elected or he will delegitimize the
vote by claiming that all mail-in ballots — a time-honored tradition that has
ushered Republicans and Democrats into office and has been used by Trump
himself — are invalid.
Trump’s motives could not be more
transparent. If he does not win the Electoral College, he’ll muddy the results
so that the outcome can be decided only by the Supreme Court or the House of
Representatives (where each state delegation gets one vote). Trump has
advantages in both right now, which he has boasted about for the past week.
I can’t say this any
more clearly: Our democracy is in terrible danger — more danger than it has
been since 1861, more danger than after Pearl Harbor, more danger than during
the Cuban missile crisis and more danger than during Watergate.
I began my career as a foreign
correspondent covering Lebanon’s second civil war, and it left a huge impact on
me. I saw what happens in a country when everything becomes politics, when a
critical mass of politicians put party before country, when responsible people,
or seemingly responsible people, think that they can bend or break the rules —
and go all the way — and that the system won’t break.
But when extremists go all the way, and
moderates just go away, the system can break. And it will break. I saw it
happen.
I would like to think that such a thing
could not happen in America. I’d like to think that … but I am very, very
worried.
I worry because Facebook and Twitter
have become giant engines for destroying the two pillars of our democracy —
truth and trust. Yes, these social networks have given voice to the voiceless.
That is a good thing and it can really enhance transparency. But they have also
become huge, unedited cesspools of conspiracy theories that are circulated and
believed by a shocking — and growing — number of people.
These social networks
are destroying our nation’s cognitive immunity — its ability to sort truth
from falsehood.
Without shared facts on which to make
decisions, there can be no solutions to our biggest challenges. And without a
modicum of trust that both sides want to preserve and enhance the common good,
it is impossible to accomplish anything big.
“Politics needs a reference point
outside of politics,’’ argues the Hebrew University religious philosopher Moshe
Halbertal. “It needs values, it needs facts and it needs leaders who respect
that there is a sacred domain of decisions that will never be used to promote
political gain, only the common good.’’
Public trust is eroded, added
Halbertal, when people feel that this notion of the common good doesn’t exist
because everything has become politics. That describes the United States today.
The institutions we have relied upon to be outside the game of politics so as
to adjudicate what is right and true — scientists, certain news media, the
courts — have become so ensnared by politics that fewer and fewer of them are
universally trusted to define and pursue the common good. Even mask-wearing has
become partisan.
You cannot sustain a healthy democracy
under such conditions.
And that is why the only choice in this
election is Joe Biden. The Democrats are not blameless when it comes to playing
politics, but there is no equivalence to the Republicans. The Democratic Party
sorted through all the choices, and, led by older Black men and women in South
Carolina, rejected the Democratic socialist candidate and said they wanted a
moderate unifier named Joe Biden.
The Republicans — who in the past voted
for Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, sane conservatives who could be counted
upon to uphold the common good — have done no such equivalent thing. They have
fallen in line lock step behind a man who is the most dishonest, dangerous,
meanspirited, divisive and corrupt person to ever occupy the Oval Office. And
they know it. Four more years of Trump’s divide and rule will destroy our
institutions and rip the country apart.
To me, the only hope for America is to
elect Biden and split the G.O.P. between the Trumpists and whatever is left of
the moderate Republicans, and then hope that a big center-left and small
center-right can agree on enough things to propel the country forward, heal the
divide and act together for the common good.
But for that to
happen, Biden has to win. And that is why I have only one answer to every
question now: Vote for Biden — do it by mail early if you must, but if you can,
please, put on a mask and do it in person. If enough of us do that, Biden can
win outright with the votes cast on Election Day, instead of waiting for all
the mail-in ballots to be counted, thereby giving time for Trump and Fox News
to muddy the outcome.
So help register someone to vote for
Joe Biden. Phone bank for Joe Biden. Talk to your neighbor about Joe Biden.
Volunteer for Joe Biden. Drive someone to the polls to vote for Joe Biden.
Do it as if your country’s
democracy depends on it, because it does.