Every part in regards to the staging of Kamala Harris’s “closing argument” rally Wednesday night time on the White Home Ellipse appeared designed to border the upcoming election as a referendum on democracy. Flanked by American flags and surrounded by banners that screamed FREEDOM, the Democratic nominee delivered her speech towards the identical backdrop that Donald Trump used on January 6 when he addressed the gang that went on to storm the Capitol.
“So look,” Harris mentioned about midway via her speech. “In lower than 90 days, both Donald Trump or I will probably be within the Oval Workplace …”
Scattered shouts of You’ll! You’ll! echoed from the viewers close to the stage. In my conversations with Harris supporters afterward, their confidence appeared genuine. To an individual, everybody I talked with believed they have been on the verge of victory—that Harris would defeat the “wannabe dictator” as soon as and for all, pull America again from the brink, and save the world’s oldest democracy from descending into facism.
Then I’d ask a query they discovered dispiriting: What if she doesn’t?
It’s a query that’s been on my thoughts for months. We’re in an odd and precarious political second as a rustic: With 4 days left in one of many closest presidential races in historical past, supporters of each campaigns appear satisfied that they will win—and that in the event that they don’t, the results for America will probably be existential.
Trump and his allies have already clearly signaled what they’ll do if he loses: Declare victory anyway, declare the election rigged, and interact in one other conspiracy to overturn the end result, whether or not by litigation, extra-Constitutional arm-twisting, and even violence. The stress marketing campaign is unlikely to work; as Paul Rosenzweig famous in The Atlantic, not one of the officers overseeing vote tabulation in battleground states is a partisan election denier. Nonetheless, this full-frontal assault on the validity of the election represents an ongoing risk.
If Harris loses, the response from her coalition would virtually definitely be much less dramatic and damaging; not like Trump, she has dedicated to accepting the end result. However because the election nears and panic over Trump’s authoritarian impulses reaches a fever pitch in sure quarters, I’ve begun to fret that prophecies of democratic breakdown following a Trump reelection might turn out to be self-fulfilling. What occurs to America if Harris voters have absolutely internalized the concept that democracy is on the poll, after which “democracy” loses?
In 2016, Trump’s shock victory was met with a groundswell of small-d democratic power. There have been marches within the streets, and record-breaking donations to the ACLU, and waves of grassroots organizing. Subscriptions surged at newspapers dedicated to holding the brand new administration to account; books about combating tyranny grew to become greatest sellers. The power wasn’t contained to the liberal “resistance” motion. Conservative expats launched their very own political teams and publications. As my colleague Franklin Foer just lately wrote, the warnings of impending autocracy in America on the time “helped propel a spirit of loud, uncompromising opposition to Trump.”
That power contributed to record-high turnout within the 2020 election, when Trump was defeated. To many individuals outdoors the MAGA coalition, Joe Biden’s victory represented a triumphant climax within the narrative of the Trump period. And had the one-term, twice-impeached president merely receded right into a Mar-a-Lago exile, the story may need ended with a tidy civic ethical: An aspiring authoritarian was vanquished in probably the most American approach attainable—on the poll field. Democracy wins once more.
However after all the story didn’t finish there. And the truth that, 4 years later, Trump is inside a coin flip of returning to the Oval Workplace has created some dissonance in liberal America. Trump has, in his third marketing campaign, been extra specific than ever about his intolerant designs. He has talked about weaponizing the Justice Division towards his political enemies, changing 1000’s of civil servants with loyalists, and revoking broadcast licenses for TV networks whose information protection he doesn’t like.
Democrats have sought to warn voters in regards to the risk that these actions would pose to democracy—typically dialing up the rhetoric in an effort to wake People to the peril. However the messaging appears to have had an unlucky twin impact, deeply stressing out voters already inclined to consider it whereas largely failing to resonate with the undecided and politically disengaged. Final week, The New York Occasions reported on a memo circulated by the main pro-Harris tremendous PAC warning Democrats that persuadable voters weren’t being moved by messages that targeted on the previous president’s authoritarianism. “Attacking Trump’s fascism is just not that persuasive,” the e-mail learn. In contrast with 2020, fewer People are telling pollsters that they’re extremely motivated to vote, or that that is an important election of their lifetime.
Inside a sure phase of Harris’s base, although, the battle towards autocracy stays very a lot prime of thoughts. And for those who spend an excessive amount of time on-line monitoring the discourse, as I do, you may come away with the impression that, for a lot of, Election Day would be the decisive second within the battle for American democracy. Some liberals are even planning to go away the nation if Trump wins. Biden’s son Hunter just lately informed Politico he was frightened that Trump’s reelection would imply “dropping our democracy to a fascist minority” and warned {that a} second Trump time period “is doubtlessly the tip of America as we’ve identified it.”
I’ve heard related sentiments from my most anxious Harris-voting family and friends members. And I’ve questioned whether or not one other Trump victory would spur in them the identical spirit of post-2016 activism or ship them spiraling into fatalism and disengagement.
On Wednesday night time, Harris was cautious in her speech to not wallow an excessive amount of within the doom and gloom of an imperiled democracy. However she did take goal at her opponent’s illiberalism. She mentioned that Trump was “out for unchecked energy” and warned that if elected, he would enter the Oval Workplace with an “enemies record.” She alluded to the nation’s delivery in revolt towards a “petty tyrant,” and described People who’ve fought over centuries to defend and promote democracy world wide. “They didn’t battle, sacrifice, and lay down their lives solely to see us cede our elementary freedoms, solely to see us undergo the desire of one other petty tyrant,” Harris declared to cheers.
In my conversations after the speech, many supporters, teary-eyed and excessive on adrenaline as Beyoncé’s “Freedom” nonetheless blared from the audio system, have been understandably loath to speak about what they’ll do subsequent week if their candidate loses. However they politely indulged me.
Alyssa VanLeeuwen, a mother from Maryland who introduced her eighth-grade daughter to the rally, emitted a guttural agghh once I posed the query to her. “Democracy is totally on the road,” she informed me. A Trump victory, she mentioned, would imply a bleak and unsure future for her daughter. “I’m scared. I’m terrified if that occurs.”
After I requested her if she thought that worry would translate to disillusionment or activism, she paused to provide it thought. “I feel,” she mentioned, “everyone’s going to go to battle once more to attempt to struggle for his or her neighbors.”
I spoke with one other Harris supporter who requested me to not use her identify (“My household could possibly be focused”). She, too, known as the prospect of Trump’s reelection “terrifying.” She mentioned that Trump would herald “the return of McCarthyism” as he used federal energy to root out and punish his political enemies, and went on to put out in vivid element the varied worst-case situations of a second Trump time period. However once I requested her whether or not she thought American democracy itself is likely to be destroyed, she mentioned no. “We’ve got 300 million individuals on this nation,” she informed me, “and I don’t assume we might permit that.”
This angle was shared by virtually everybody I spoke with that night time on the Ellipse. A few of them informed me about pals, glued to cable information and doomscrolling on their telephones, who may have a tendency towards fatalism if Trump wins once more. However the individuals I met—the sort who journey lengthy distances and wait outdoors within the chilly for hours to attend political rallies—weren’t considering of Election Day as a singular make-or-break second. They appeared to know that, irrespective of who wins, America will nonetheless be a democracy subsequent week, and the week after that. Its preservation relies upon, partially, on not pegging its destiny to the result of anybody election.
Earlier than leaving the Ellipse, I met Salome Agbaroji, a 19-year-old Harvard scholar who had traveled from Cambridge to see Harris converse. As a poet, she spends a variety of time serious about the language that shapes our politics, and he or she informed me she resents what she considers hyperbolic rhetoric within the media in regards to the finish of democracy. A professor had just lately taught her the foundation of the Greek phrase for democracy—demos, which means “individuals,” and kratia, which means “rule.” The facility of the individuals doesn’t disappear in a single day simply because the White Home is occupied by an intolerant chief.
“I don’t assume democracy lives in an establishment,” Agbaroji informed me. “Democracy lives within the individuals.” So long as individuals maintain on to “that spirit, it will likely be onerous to kill.”