Thinking the Unthinkable
The best way for Democrats to stop Trump from becoming president again is to start realistically talking about what happens if he wins.
“I just can’t comprehend how this is happening again. What will we do if Trump wins? The idea of that man being president again is just unthinkable. What are we going to do?” The answers to these questions were not in the materials given by the Democratic Party to door knockers. The woman asking me these questions was standing on her front porch, but she might as well have been standing on a cliff edge overlooking a bottomless abyss. I told her that all we can do is keep working on a local level to protect democracy and restore faith in the beneficial role government can play in our lives, citing examples like the safety improvements made to a crumbling railroad tunnel facilitated by our Congressman Chris Deluzio and the added funding to our local police department and EMS companies secured by Mandy Steele, our representative in Harrisburg. The woman thanked me for my door-knocking efforts and seemed heartened by thoughts of races beyond the existential struggle at the top of the ticket, encouraged that there would still be good work to be done even if the unthinkable happened. Yet as I walked off her porch I was haunted by the suspicion that maybe those at the very top of the Democratic Party did not have contingency plans extending beyond November 5th and had barely even begun to think about the unthinkable reality of a second Trump presidency.
It seems ridiculous to suggest that Democrats have not given enough thought to Trump being re-elected. You could argue that Trump winning a second term has been all Democrats have thought about for the past four years. Democrats barely got a chance to savor the relief of watching the January 6th insurrection fail and the joy of Biden’s inauguration before anxiety over a looming rematch with Trump began to creep in. Even before the 2022 mid-term elections, President Biden used his “Battle for the Soul of the Nation” speech to paint the 2024 election in darkly apocalyptic tones. “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic,” Biden declared. “MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards — backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love.” “Battle for the Soul of the Nation” was essentially a kick-off speech for Biden’s re-election, a campaign built on a Defend Democracy theme that warned a Trump 2024 victory would result in nothing less than the ruination of the country. These MAGA nightmares would become even more vivid with the Heritage Foundation’s unveiling of Project 2025, an in-your-face instruction manual detailing how the right wing would dismantle key parts of the federal government and revoke the hard-won rights of Americans. With the bowing out of Biden and the ascension of Kamala Harris to the top of the ticket in July, Democrats enjoyed a refreshing break from the politics of fear for a brief “Brat Summer” celebrating sunny politics of joy. Yet with the days growing shorter, the nights turning colder and the polls drawing closer, Democrats can now feel a chill once again running down their spines, paralyzed by the fear that despite all the donations, all the ad buys, all the door knocking, all the apocalyptic warnings to sway swing voters, Trump might actually prevail on November 5th.
This fear-based campaign by the Democratic National Committee was always a High-Risk, High-Reward strategy. It’s one thing to tell voters this is the most important election of their lifetime. It’s quite another thing to tell them that the Soul of the Nation will be extinguished if the other side wins the election. So far the High-Reward end of this strategy has paid off handsomely. Fear has proven to be an even better driver of campaign donations than greed. The Harris campaign has raised over $1 billion, a jaw-dropping number double what Trump and his rapid MAGA fanbase have raised. But with less than three weeks to go until Election Day and the race still a toss-up, the High-Risk side of the Democratic strategy is rearing its ugly head. All the stress and dread (not to mention all the donations, canvassing, and phone banking it inspired) has not spared us the agony of enduring an impending dead-heat election.
The fear and panic I’ve seen in the eyes of Democratic voters is very peculiar considering Kamala still leads in the national polls and most of the crucial swing states. Traumatized Democratic voters may remember that Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden enjoyed much larger leads at this point in their races against Trump. But Democratic campaign strategists could easily be vindicated in the end by an increased turnout of Americans moved by fear-based messaging against Trump and the same post-Dobbs advantages that led the party to surprise success in the 2022 midterms. Why so much dread when Kamala could still win and according to most pollsters is still the favorite to pull it off?
The sense of doom gripping Democrats is not so much a function of the probability that Kamala will lose as much as an inability to process the possibility of Trump actually winning. Too much of the Democrats’ talk of a second Trump presidency has been about what Trump will do to us if he wins the election. There has been almost no talk about what we will do to thwart Trump’s agenda if he does prevail. It has been almost exclusively a narrative of passive victimization rather than brave resistance. The Democratic National Committee must realize that they can only jab the fear receptors in the brains of their most loyal supporters and dedicated donors for so long before pure panic or disengaged numbness sets in. Democrats can only endure so many panic-inducing emails, texts, and commercials before they start standing on their front porch, warily glancing down their street and wondering if in three weeks they will be rounded up by MAGA stormtroopers. Regardless of what those Act Blue texts tell you, the Harris campaign already has enough money to win this election. What Democrats really need is supporters and volunteers with the confidence and determination that can only come with the assurance that this is not a doomsday, do-or-die election. If we are to keep morale up and finish strong, the Democratic Party needs to get real about the fact that Trump could win and reassure all Americans that we can defend democracy and preserve the nation even if he does.
My sense is that Democrats are afraid that talking openly about how we will cope and persist under another Trump presidency will cause complacency in the struggle to win this election, or even worse complicity in the dark designs MAGA has for America’s future. True, January 6th was a game changer and 2024 Trump seems to be far more demented and fascist than the 2016 and 2020 versions, as evidenced by his continued hate-mongering against legal Haitian immigrants, his promise to use the military to subdue the “radical left,” and his characterizing of Democrats as the “enemy from within.” A second Trump presidency might very well be as scary as any scenario cooked up by Democratic campaign strategists.
But with less than three weeks left, Democrats need to come to terms with the fact that those receptive to the fear-based message have already been moved by it, and if anything, they may be collapsing under the weight of dread. As hard as it is for Democrats to imagine, anyone who can still be categorized as a precious “undecided voter” is effectively immune to the idea that Trump is an existential threat to America. Everyone eligible to vote in 2024 has already survived one Trump presidency. Suggesting we will not survive a second one strains the credibility of the Democratic Party and might just push independents toward the GOP. It is much better to remind the undecideds of how annoying, incompetent, buffoonish, and ridiculous the first Trump presidency was, a four-year clown show that saw more cabinet secretary turnovers than the Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama administrations combined. Rather than present Trump as a super-villain, Democrats need to remind undecided voters how ineffective the first Trump administration was at tackling issues like immigration, wealth inequality, and economic stagnation that he now claims only he can solve. If undecided voters can’t even trust the guy to make it through a Town Hall Q&A without turning it into an impromptu dance party, they shouldn’t trust that he deserves a second shot at making America great again. Independents will be swayed and Democrats will be reinvigorated if we emphasize Trump’s obvious incapacity to lead rather than present him as being uniquely capable of reconfiguring our country into a dystopian nightmare.
With the finish line in sight, Democrats will face the tricky task of burning the candle of faith at both ends: maintaining faith that Kamala Harris will win this election while keeping faith that all is not lost if she does not. To echo what President Biden said in his Battle for the Soul of America speech, “While the threat to American democracy is real, I want to say as clearly as we can: We are not powerless in the face of these threats.” As Election Day approaches we must reassure Democratic voters that we will not be powerless if Kamala loses on November 5th, but also caution them that the threat to American democracy will not disappear if she wins. Win or lose, the Battle will go on, and the Soul of America will endure.
Excellent post, and well said from start to finish! We all need to be mentally prepared for a possible Trump victory, and I'm so glad you're starting this conversation, which I haven't yet seen anyone else raise.