In the days after the presidential election, while votes were still being tallied, essays began appearing in the national media that might be called “whatever the outcome” articles.
These pieces argued that it didn’t matter whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden ultimately won. America’s afflictions ran too deep. The country was too divided, too rancorous, too racist. No matter who is inaugurated Jan. 20, as George Packer wrote in The Atlantic, “all Americans will remain the losers.”
It’s safe to say that our beleaguered nation won’t soon be done with racism, bitterness and the siren song of demagoguery. But I can’t throw in with Packer, et al. The outcome of the 2020 election matters profoundly. We’ll get a sharp reminder of just how dramatically the country changes when the chief executive does.
Trump brings so much venom and menace to any doorstep he darkens that the improvement will be immediate the day he’s helicoptered out of D.C.
But what about the earnest concerns that Trump will keep Trumping when out of office? He no doubt will. But it’s a lot easier to tune out a sadistic has-been in his late 70s holding court for last-gaspers on a fascist website than it is to ignore a belligerent commander in chief who sits on the country’s nuclear arsenal and hands down catastrophic executive orders that have material consequences for everyone.