大象传媒

The election is over.  than Donald Trump did four years ago. By all reasonable accounts, that should give President-elect Biden a mandate to set an aggressive agenda.

Given the twin crises of the pandemic and economic collapse, Biden, once in office, will have to move insistently if the United States is to recover at all. And in keeping to his 鈥渂uild back better鈥� slogan, he鈥檒l have to take on more systemic problems: vast income and wealth inequality, race disparities in the criminal justice and health systems, the persistent and growing threat of climate change.

On top of all that, Biden will have to deal with an insurgent movement of Americans tens-of-millions strong, and inspired and encouraged by the rantings of Donald Trump, who is likely to continue spewing his toxicity on right-wing cable outlets and social media once he leaves the bully pulpit of the White House. 

Biden has pledged to be the president for all Americans, including the more than 74 million Trump supporters.

Biden has pledged to be the president for all Americans, including the more than 74 million Trump supporters. Many of those people are still convinced that Trump won the 2020 election in a landslide, and that Biden used a massive vote fraud scheme to steal it from him. Already right-wing groups are mobilizing鈥攁nd 鈥攖o try to 鈥渟top the steal.鈥�

It鈥檚 complete nonsense, of course, but four years of Trump have successfully created an alternate reality for his legions of followers. Courts have thankfully adhered to the law鈥攁nd common sense鈥攁nd  before the Electoral College vote. That included a  to overturn the election results in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. More than , as did  (including most of the former states of the Confederacy).

Still, millions believe that the election was stolen: Powerful voices in Washington, such as U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, ; State-level  or for . Add to that the fact that the economic forces that facilitated Trump鈥檚 rise are even stronger today than they were in 2016. 

Beginning day one, President Biden will have to deal with what amounts to a recalcitrant fifth column in American society that stretches into the government, and which has been conditioned to see his administration as illegitimate. Biden will have a hard enough time governing without having to worry about the schism in the body politic. 

If the Republican Party holds onto just one of the Georgia Senate seats in the Jan. 5 runoff, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell won鈥檛 hesitate to use his de facto veto power to hamstring any legislation that doesn鈥檛 include major giveaways to big business. A Supreme Court newly cemented on the hard right wing鈥攕imilar in judicial outlook than the infamously 鈥攊s unlikely to endorse broad-based changes in the economic structure of the nation, even as climate change poses an existential crisis.

And so we have to acknowledge and be prepared to take on the challenge(s) ahead. One of the hallmarks of cultlike behavior, which is being demonstrated by Trump supporters, is a resistance to facts that conflict with the adopted narrative. The illogicality of that belief system also shields adherents from logical persuasion. We won鈥檛 be able to argue our way out of this without fundamentally changing the facts on the ground. That means addressing those basic economic issues that have been ignored by both Democratic and Republican administrations for decades.

Trump鈥檚 supporters are not聽owed聽our sympathy.

Since the pandemic began, . Rural America and small towns are still being hollowed out by a post-industrial collapse. Trump鈥檚 plans to make America great again were by default plans to make racism acceptable again and to give the wealthiest people more tax breaks鈥攈is followers are still waiting for that economic payday that never came, and they鈥檙e still angry at everyone except the people most responsible for their plight. 

Some commentators have seen the future of divided government and anti-democratic Trumpism as a . In The New York Times interview with historian Joseph Tainter, Ben Ehrenreich writes, quoting Native American scholar Michael V. Wilcox, 鈥渃ollapses happen all the time.鈥� 

鈥淭his is not to diminish the suffering they cause or the rage they should occasion,鈥� Ehrenreich continues, 鈥渙nly to suggest that the real danger comes from imagining that we can keep living the way we always have, and that the past is any more stable than the present.鈥�

The  has precedent in the  and the .  in recent years than Islamic extremists.

While it may be easy to do so, and the desired progression for some, we cannot ignore the huge number of Americans who now effectively live in a cultlike bubble, immune from persuasion, and who will be back in four years to support another Trump-esque candidate for president, whether he or she bears the Trump name or not. 

We have to recognize that people can and do leave cults and extremist movements to rejoin society. That鈥檚 not to say they don鈥檛 still hold on to certain ideologies. But they may recognize the harm they鈥檝e done and seek to make amends. Or perhaps they simply miss the connections they鈥檇 previously severed. Sometimes, entire societies can be transformed; just . But the process of deprogramming a cultist doesn鈥檛 usually involve clever arguments on social media or fact-by-fact debunking of falsehoods. Instead, it often comes down to one-on-one communication with a heavy dose of empathy and kindness鈥攊t鈥檚 a slow and arduous process, but it鈥檚 the one that works best.

Whether we鈥檙e talking about neo-Nazis abandoning extremism or , a hate-the-cult, love-the-cultist approach is what鈥檚 called for.

That鈥檚 admittedly a tall order for many of us, especially those who have been targeted by Trump鈥檚 and his minions鈥� hatred. Some of us won鈥檛 be able to do it at all. And that鈥檚 understandable. Far better that our sympathy be with the victims of this administration鈥攖he jailed children separated from their parents, the families and friends of slain Black people, the poor people denied relief from punitive medical bills during a pandemic.

Trump鈥檚 supporters are not owed our sympathy. Those raised in the Catholic Church know this: You aren鈥檛 forgiven for your sins until after you鈥檝e confessed and done penance. Kindness and empathy also shouldn鈥檛 be conflated with compromising. And we should scorn those who proudly wore  now demanding that Democrats should 鈥渦nderstand鈥� their hurt feelings. 

That isn鈥檛 empathy; it鈥檚 capitulation. You don鈥檛 meet White supremacists halfway in the hopes they鈥檒l be less violent. (Hint: they won鈥檛.) , or the people that enabled his assault on our democracy. They all belong in prison, and Biden shouldn鈥檛 shy away from prosecuting the myriad crimes that have been committed in the Trump administration.

Germany didn鈥檛 transform into a modern democratic nation until after it was defeated in war, its leaders killed or imprisoned, and a full-scale denazification process of every sector of society had taken place. 

Peace without justice never lasts.

We didn鈥檛 go as far down the road to autocracy as wartime Germany did, but there is still a lot of work to do before our democracy is both secure and just. And we can鈥檛 wait for 74 million Trumpists to come around. They may decide to come along and renounce their former anti-democratic cult, but they鈥檙e going to have to realize that 鈥渞eturning to normal鈥� is going to look different this time around. The Trump years have laid bare for all to see just how much injustice and inequality still needs to be addressed. 

President-elect Biden, for all his centrism and desire for normalcy, also needs to recognize that the Republican Party has been taken over and transformed into a Trumpist cult. You can鈥檛 compromise in a democracy with those whose goal is the abolition of democracy. We鈥檝e been compromising our basic principles for decades already, and all it got us was Trump.

There is going to be enormous pressure, just as there was in 2008, to sweep the crimes of the outgoing administration aside in the name of 鈥渃omity鈥� or 鈥渂ipartisanship.鈥� That will be a fatal mistake for us now.

Yes, opening the channels of communication with the Republicans in Congress is necessary. But a party that has spent the past 40 years running ever further to the extreme right has a long trek back before we can talk about meeting in the middle again. We鈥檙e on a long journey toward a better nation, now. We can, and will, continue to argue about the details, but our goal of being a more just, fair, and equitable nation can鈥檛 be traded away.