‘In Defeat: Defiance’
Bill Kristol, at The Bulwark:
The American people have made a disastrous choice. And they have
done so decisively, and with their eyes wide open.
Donald J. Trump will be our next president, elected with a
majority of the popular vote, likely winning both more votes and
more states than he did in his two previous elections. After
everything — after his chaotic presidency, after January 6th,
after the last year in which the mask was increasingly off, and no
attempt was made to hide the extremism of the agenda or the
ugliness of the appeal — the American people liked what they saw.
At a minimum, they were willing to accept what they saw.
And Trump was running against a competent candidate who ran a good
campaign to the center and bested him in a debate, with a strong
economy. Yet Trump prevailed, pulling off one of the most
remarkable comebacks in American political history. Trump boasted
last night, “We’ve achieved the most incredible political thing,”
and he’s not altogether wrong. […]
So: We can lament our situation. We can analyze how we got here.
We can try to learn lessons from what has happened. We have to do
all these things.
But we can’t only do those things. As Churchill put it: “In
Defeat: Defiance.” We’ll have to keep our nerve and our principles
against all the pressure to abandon them. We’ll have to fight
politically and to resist lawfully. We’ll have to do our best to
limit the damage from Trump. And we’ll have to lay the groundwork
for future recovery.
To do all this, we’ll have to constitute a strong opposition and a
loyal opposition, loyal to the Declaration and the Constitution,
loyal to the past achievements and future promise of this nation,
loyal to what America has been and should be.
★
Bill Kristol, at The Bulwark:
The American people have made a disastrous choice. And they have
done so decisively, and with their eyes wide open.
Donald J. Trump will be our next president, elected with a
majority of the popular vote, likely winning both more votes and
more states than he did in his two previous elections. After
everything — after his chaotic presidency, after January 6th,
after the last year in which the mask was increasingly off, and no
attempt was made to hide the extremism of the agenda or the
ugliness of the appeal — the American people liked what they saw.
At a minimum, they were willing to accept what they saw.
And Trump was running against a competent candidate who ran a good
campaign to the center and bested him in a debate, with a strong
economy. Yet Trump prevailed, pulling off one of the most
remarkable comebacks in American political history. Trump boasted
last night, “We’ve achieved the most incredible political thing,”
and he’s not altogether wrong. […]
So: We can lament our situation. We can analyze how we got here.
We can try to learn lessons from what has happened. We have to do
all these things.
But we can’t only do those things. As Churchill put it: “In
Defeat: Defiance.” We’ll have to keep our nerve and our principles
against all the pressure to abandon them. We’ll have to fight
politically and to resist lawfully. We’ll have to do our best to
limit the damage from Trump. And we’ll have to lay the groundwork
for future recovery.
To do all this, we’ll have to constitute a strong opposition and a
loyal opposition, loyal to the Declaration and the Constitution,
loyal to the past achievements and future promise of this nation,
loyal to what America has been and should be.