After four years of a president who has made war on American democracy, the American people have unambiguously shown Donald Trump to the door. Joe Biden’s electoral college haul is likely to be 306, and he has a four million-plus and growing lead over Trump in the popular vote. The public reaction, at least among those who supported Joe Biden, has been described as akin to the outpouring of joy when a war ends. People have been cheering, crying, bumping elbows if not hugging outright, forming spontaneous dance parties in the streets.
Joe Biden and the American people have won a great victory today, and we should celebrate the full meaning of this triumph. Debate over whether or not Biden has won big enough to claim a “mandate” is absurd, as it ignores the many ways in which this president has abused his power to remain in office and sought to corrupt the election itself, not to mention the inherent powers of an incumbent president. Any victory in the face of such a president, let alone in a nation in which political polarization and partisan loyalty is so very high, is remarkable. Donald Trump has spent his time in office waging a disinformation campaign against the American people: from the get-go, he lied about receiving more votes than Hillary Clinton; he has exaggerated his contributions to the country’s pre-covid economy; he has lied about the supposed threat posed by Muslims and Latino immigrants; he has attacked the free press; he has downplayed the threat of white supremacist violence while praising the modern-day successors of the KKK; and, most fatally, he has attempted to deceive us about the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic.
This disinformation campaign was, for Trump, necessary because it sought to prevent the American people from forming a proper judgment of the reality of the Trump administration: specifically, the incompetence, authoritarianism, corruption, and white supremacism at its core. For The Hot Screen, the president’s white supremacist policies and agitation have been the worst of his offenses. Racism has been the nation’s great sin and burden, and the president firmly placed himself on the side of white supremacism in a way that arguably no modern president has done. His offense in this respect is all the greater given the reality of America’s ongoing transformation into a multi-ethnic democracy — a transformation that promises both a redemption for this country and a shining example for other nations around the world.
And this is where the president’s placement of racism at the center of his political appeal intersects with a Republican Party that adapted to him with a rapidity that left many people puzzled. The GOP has been fighting an ongoing battle to preserve the power of white people against demographic change, and Donald Trump simply turned this battle into an open declaration of war against an egalitarian America. The president made explicit what the GOP has preferred to keep at the level of dog whistle politics.
For the The Hot Screen, Trump and the GOP’s placement of government at the service of white supremacism — whether in restricting immigration by brown-skinned newcomers, or suppressing the vote of African-Americans — is the single greatest reason to celebrate Joe Biden’s victory today. The treatment of all Americans as equal, no matter who they are, is where the rubber hits the road when we talk about what American democracy means. Every American gets to vote. Every American has something to contribute to our society. For Republicans, racism has been the gateway drug into authoritarianism and treason. In the name of protecting white privilege, everything is on the table, from vote suppression to supporting an authoritarian leader who promises to protect “his” voters. And so to see a multi-ethnic coalition drive Donald Trump out of office is a glorious sight indeed.