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On the day after the election, I hoped my fears for our country's future were overblown. They were not.
Donald Trump refuses to be subject to the law. The legitimacy of our elections is in doubt. The president is waging war on the truth. The administration is undermining the national unity that makes democracy possible. And then there's the breathtaking corruption.
There is a tendency, when talking about these things, to wring our hands about "both sides." But the truth is that this is not a symmetrical problem.
We should be clear about this: The increasing radicalism and irresponsibility of the Republican Party, including decades of demeaning government, demonizing Democrats, and debasing norms, is what gave us Donald Trump.
Whether it was stealing a Supreme Court seat, gerrymandering congressional districts to disenfranchise African Americans, or muzzling government climate scientists, Republicans were undermining American democracy long before Trump made it to the Oval Office.
With our democracy in crisis and our institutions and traditions under siege, we need to do everything we can to fight back. Here's how.
First: We’ve got to mobilize turnout in the midterms. There are fantastic candidates all over the country who’ll do great things, and we could finally see some congressional oversight of the White House.
Then, we need to do some housecleaning. Just as Nixon’s abuses of power led to reforms, post-Trump all future presidential candidates should be required by law to release their tax returns. They also should not be exempt from ethics requirements and conflict-of-interest rules.
We need to improve and protect our elections, from instituting paper ballot backups to repairing the Voting Rights Act, getting secret money out of politics, and—you won't be surprised to hear my support for this—abolishing the Electoral College.
Above all, we need to find a way to restitch our fraying social fabric and rekindle our civic spirit. We need to bring back civics education in our schools. We need systemic economic reforms that reduce inequality and give a strong voice to working families.
Democracy works only when we accept that we’re in this together. We can’t just ask, “Am I better off than I was four years ago?” We have to ask, “Are we better off? Are we as a country better, stronger, and fairer?” Ultimately, healing our country will come down to each of us.
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