If Trump Wins, It's Because Neither Party Had the Guts To Stop Him

Donald Trump left the White House in January 2021 as a defeated, disgraced figure. He now seems likely to return to the presidency.

Donald Trump left the White House in January 2021 as a defeated, disgraced figure, soon after the House of Representatives impeached him for a second time.

When that second impeachment trial concluded, members of the U.S. Senate had the chance to convict Trump and, in so doing, bar him from holding federal office ever again—something the House had recommended as part of the articles of impeachment. The final vote in the Senate was 57–43 in favor of convicting Trump, 10 votes short of the necessary two-thirds majority.

The Senate's failure on February 13, 2021, was not the singular thing that brought us to this moment—where it appears (but is not yet certain) that Trump will win the 2024 presidential election and will soon be the president-elect. But it was the first in the cascade of decisions that led here, and without it none of the others would have been possible: The matter would have been settled, for good, in the appropriate constitutional venue for settling such affairs. Instead, then–Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R–Ky.) off-loaded that responsibility to the criminal justice system.

In the 1,362 days since then, Trump has staged a political comeback that seemed both impossible and, at least once it got rolling, inevitable. He's been arrested, convicted, literally bloodied by an assassin's bullet.

Now, he appears to be on the precipice of victory once more. By early Wednesday, the major media networks called Georgia and North Carolina for Trump, giving him a number of plausible pathways to victory in the Electoral College. He seems to be on strong footing in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Arizona, which would provide a clear winning margin even if Vice President Kamala Harris manages to win the remaining swing states. The counting will continue into the morning, and perhaps beyond, and it's not out of the question that Harris could find a narrow path to victory.

But that path is now exceptionally narrow. As of 1 a.m., The New York Times gave Trump a 95 percent chance of winning. Other outlets tracking the election have come to similar conclusions. The writing is on the wall, even if the paint is not yet fully dry.

For Trump's allies and supporters, his victory would undoubtedly be proof of his singular political talents: a heroic journey unlike any that an American politician has ever taken.

But Trump is no hero and four more years of him in the White House would only encourage and entrench some terrible ideas. He aims to raise new and higher barriers to global trade that would burden American families and businesses at home while diminishing American soft power abroad. His promise to deport millions of illegal immigrants, if turned into actual policy, would be an attack on fundamental rights and a serious blow to the country's economy. His tax plans carry an implied promise of more borrowing. He's fantasized about using government power to punish unfriendly news organizations, and he has expressed an authoritarian belief in his own legal immunity from accountability.

In sum: Any hope of steering the Republican Party back toward a principled belief in limited government, free markets, and antiauthoritarianism may very well die (for at least a generation) with Trump's ultimate vindication.

Trump's victory, as Reason's Brian Doherty wrote yesterday, comes with "a short-term promise to assault and kidnap and ship out millions of residents who have harmed no one's life or property, and in doing so destroy huge chunks of America's productive economy, disrupting the lives of the other millions of legal citizens who hire them, work for them, depend on their services, or rent and sell to them. Only one has major supporters who cheer a masochistic vision of him as a 'daddy' righteously punishing a misbehaving nation."

Clearly, this is not a hero's journey but rather a condemnation of the state of American politics. The blame flows in many directions. Republicans for rallying around an obviously unfit, self-interested, disgraced candidate. Democrats for failing to find a better candidate—a candidate who may have emerged from a competitive primary process, one that Harris almost certainly wouldn't have won—to run against Trump. If either major party had simply nominated a normal candidate, this election probably wouldn't have been close.

But I keep being drawn back to those 43 Republican senators who declined to close off this possible future when given the chance. The U.S. Constitution gave them unambiguous power to act, as part of a process that is inherently political, to rid the country of Trump's chaos and authoritarianism. If things go bad, if American liberty is seriously eroded during the next Trump administration, they deserve to be remembered for the moment when they did not have the courage to do the necessary thing.