If
Donald Trump wins, it’ll be a new age of darkness
Jonathan Freedland
Friday 4 November
2016 19.26 GMT
America
stands on the brink of the abyss. Its choice could weaken the ties
that make civilised order possible – in the US and beyond
We are standing on
the brink of the abyss. And, like anyone who’s ever peered into a
chasm, we are experiencing a queasy, sinking feeling. All round the
world, not just in the United States, people are contemplating the
prospect that on Wednesday morning we will wake to hear of victory
for Donald J Trump.
The mere imagining
of that outcome is inducing anxiety in those far away from the
action. I don’t just mean obsessives such as me, who spend the
midnight hour checking the early voting returns from Washoe County,
Nevada. Otherwise normal people also confess to being reduced to
nervous wrecks by the thought that Trump might actually win. They
chart their mood swings on social media, delighting in hopeful news –
Hillary Clinton up in ABC News tracking poll! – or panicking at any
sign the snake-oil salesman might pull it off, such as today’s
Washington Post headline: “Donald Trump has never been closer to
the presidency than he is at this moment”, I could feel my palms
turn clammy.
In Britain we feel
especially vulnerable. If you voted remain, the memory of a ballot
going the wrong way is fresh. And not just any ballot, but one you
believe will cause lasting, epochal damage. The thought that Tuesday
might bring the second such moment in a year is one to dread.
Thanks to Brexit,
the usual reassurances – the expert endorsements, the polling data
– have lost their calming properties. In June the smart money,
including the betting markets, said remain had it in the bag. Burnt
by that experience, nothing can soothe us now – except the right
result. Until then, we have to chew our fingernails, hit refresh on
the Real Clear Politics polling page and wait.
Many, especially in
the US, will have a ready response: what’s it got to do with you?
To which the answer is: plenty. The experience of the last
photo-finish election – Bush v Gore in 2000 – taught many
non-Americans a lesson we could not forget. Americans decide, but
their decision affects the entire world. The supreme court’s
installation of George W Bush as president had a profound and global
impact. Just over a year later, Bush was agitating to invade Iraq, a
choice whose consequences we live with still. (In Britain the focus
is always on Tony Blair, as it was again this week when John Chilcot
faced MPs. But that war would never have happened without Bush.)
It's the contempt
Trump shows for democratic norms that has people fearing they are
witness to something akin to fascism
So a President Trump
will change lives far beyond the US. An American leader who believes
climate change is a Chinese hoax, who believes terror suspects should
be tortured and their family members killed, who believes that Saudi
Arabia should have nuclear weapons, who is fascinated by nukes’
power of “devastation” and who has asked repeatedly why the US
doesn’t use them; a man who says, “I love war”; a man who
drools in admiration for Vladimir Putin and whose disregard for Nato,
and refusal to promise to defend a member state if attacked, would
all but invite Moscow to invade one of the Baltic states – such a
man would plunge all of us into a dark future. That we are not living
in the US will not protect us.
But his impact will
be felt – is perhaps already being felt – in a more subtle way
too. For like it or not, the US and Britain breathe some of the same
air. Their politics rubs off on us. (This year, unusually, it’s
worked the other way around too: Trump invokes Brexit daily.)
So a Trump
presidency would exert a pull beyond America’s shores. Suspicion of
migrants, loathing of Muslims, a desire to put up walls and roll back
social progress – these currents exist everywhere. Were Trump to
win, they would have the endorsement of the most powerful office in
the world. For eight years, Barack Obama has been a cautionary voice,
counselling against the global rush towards xenophobia and
insularity. If Trump replaces him, white nationalism will have
command of the world’s loudest megaphone. Racists and bigots
everywhere will feel validated, vindicated – and mobilised.
The same is true of
the contempt Trump shows for basic democratic norms. As much as the
rank prejudice, it’s this that has serious people – including
Republicans – fearing they are witness to something akin to
fascism. His insistence that “I alone can fix” America’s
problems; his threats to curb the free press, punishing news
organisations that have criticised him; his hint that he would sack
America’s generals and replace them with ones more compliant; his
threats to jail his opponent and his winking hint that gun rights
activists could find a way to deal with Clinton; his refusal to say
he will accept the outcome of the election – with each of these
steps, Trump has trampled on the foundation stones of liberal
democracy.
Should he win, it
would be a victory for a candidate who has lied more than any in
history, who is spectacularly unqualified for the job and who stands
contrary to the very idea of expertise. (Asked who he consulted on
foreign policy, Trump answered, “I’m speaking with myself, number
one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of
things.”) It would be a triumph over truth, facts and knowledge. It
would be the start of a new age of endarkenment.
It sounds extreme,
it sounds far-fetched. But that’s because we assume that stability,
even the civilised order, are somehow the natural way of things,
almost impossible to upend. But that’s not how it is. Civilisation
is frail. The balances and restraints that hold us in check are
delicate: they took many centuries to construct but would take only
moments to smash. They rely on goodwill, trust and co-operation more
than we realise. Take those things away, and darkness beckons.
In Britain, we are
not smugly distant from this. Our own democratic system rests on
respect for the rule of law and the judges who enforce it. Yet, even
here a national newspaper can brand three senior judges “enemies of
the people”, citing the fact that one of them is “openly gay”
as evidence that their legal judgment was rigged and illegitimate.
This is Trumpism –
he too attacks judges who won’t surrender to him – and it is a
virus not confined to the US. Full of hatred towards anyone deemed an
outsider, contemptuous of knowledge and red-faced with self-righteous
fury at a nebulous, all-encompassing elite, it is becoming the
movement of our times.
The first step
towards its defeat is denying it a victory on Tuesday. Across the
globe, we have to hope that happens – and that Americans end this
nightmare before it can begin.
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