There’s a delicate balance in moments like this for anyone who has any level of megaphone. You don’t want to sound pollyannaish or appear that you’re in some kind of denial about the gravity of the situation. Just as much, though, you don’t want to affirm perceptions or feelings that are natural and even healthy but are still not altogether accurate.
America is not in or destined for autocracy. We took a step closer to it on Tuesday. And it was a pretty decent sized one. We elected a man all of whose instincts and desires are to govern as an autocrat. And that was after the country got a chance to see who he was up close once already. So we not only got that but we got that with a majority, though the tiniest of ones, voting for it with every reason to know who Trump is. I said in an earlier post that I don’t believe a majority of the country wants the future Trump is promising. In response, one reader wrote, with a lot of intensity, that I was letting voters off the hook. They knew exactly what they were getting, etc.