Why I Call It a “Catastrophe”

This piece appeared as an op/ed in the newspapers in late December, 2024.

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(“It,” of course, is the 2024 Election.)

There are two main reasons.

What it reveals about the “state of consciousness” of the American people

I am reasonably certain that no previous generation of Americans – not in the time of Eisenhower, or Reagan — would have voted, in any significant numbers, for a candidate like Donald Trump. They’d have considered any one of these to be an automatic disqualifier:

• Continuous lying (30,000+ and counting);
• Repeated sexual misconduct (Access Hollywood, Stormy Daniels, E. Jean Carroll, various other plausible accusations);
• Endangering national security (Ukraine extortion, stolen classified documents);
• Focusing on his own political interests, rather than on protecting the American people, in the face of a once-in-a-century pandemic;
• Assaulting the Constitution, trying to seize power by inciting an insurrection;
• Siding with our fascistic adversaries while treating our traditional allies with contempt.
• Committing crimes – substantiated by evidence presented publicly — of the utmost seriousness.

None of this has been hidden, but has been fully reported by responsible news media (in the U.S. and, indeed, the whole free world).

And each unambiguously violates basic American values.

Yet, in this election, half the electorate voted for Trump.

We can be certain that America’s founders would have regarded what that says about the “state of consciousness” of the American people as catastrophic.

How it makes worst-case scenarios more likely.

It would be catastrophic news about the state of the nation even if Trump had lost by the narrow margin by which he won. Catastrophic that so many could vote for such a man, after all the destructiveness, and contemptible behavior, he’d so openly displayed.

But the fact that he won magnifies the catastrophe, because of how power will likely be used in America for the foreseeable future.

For several reasons, it’s no exaggeration to say that Trump’s election perceptibly increases the chances that human civilization will end up destroying itself.

Consider the two ways that human civilization is now visibly threatening self-destruction: through a nuclear holocaust (such as might have happened in 1962); and through major environmental catastrophe (such as the climate crisis threatens now to be).

Regarding both those threats, Trump’s election increases the possibility of a catastrophic outcome.

Nuclear war.

Ultimately, the prevention of nuclear war between superpowers will require the construction of a global order that ends the scourge of war. (Otherwise, humankind of playing “Russian roulette.”)

Rewarding aggressors now moves our world in the opposite direction. Which is why it has been good that the United States has led the free world in helping Ukraine make the Russian aggressor, Vladimir Putin, pay a huge price for his unprovoked attack on his neighbor.

The election of Putin’s friend, Donald Trump, is a victory for Putin—i.e. for the kind of predators who have plagued history, who will use brute force to take what rightfully belongs to others. What’s good news for the Russian tyrant – who singlehandedly destroyed the peaceful order of Europe that generations have striven to create, so that the continent won’t give the world a catastrophic World War III to follow the two world wars Europe gave the world in the twentieth century – is bad news for the human future in this age of nuclear weapons.

Trump’s helping Putin reinforces the system of war that could destroy what our species has built upon this earth.

Environmental Catastrophe:

Regarding the biosphere, on which we depend for our survival, we’ve already got a catastrophe of some magnitude unfolding right now: a climate crisis that’s still gathering momentum. How much worse it will become depends on how well humankind modifies its practices to minimize the human disruption of the earth’s climate system.

Donald Trump has a long-standing record of denying the known truth about the climate crisis, and of opposing measures to protect the future by doing what future generations would expect a responsible civilization to do, if we cared about their well-being.

So the election of Trump is understood as a major set-back by that community of people who are devoted to the effort to get human civilization to respond appropriately to the dangers posed by our civilization’s ongoing disruption of the planet’s climate system.

The Destruction of American Democracy

It is of great importance both to the well-being of Americans, and to the future of human civilization, for American Democracy to survive and flourish, and for the United States to remain “the leader of the free world.”

Trump has provided abundant evidence that he intends to continue taking a wrecking ball to the basic institutions of American democracy. He has been open about his intentions to use the powers of the Presidency in ways forbidden by the Constitution and law – like using the Justice Department to punish his political opponents, like waging war on the free press, etc. And he’s been nominating for his cabinet people apparently chosen to dismantle important components of democratic governance.

This is a step backward in the global battle now visibly being waged between Fascism and Democracy. Trump’s victory is clearly a huge setback for the forces of Democracy.

At every fork in the road – democracy/fascism, peace/war, life-thriving/life-degrading, cooperation/strife – handing power to Trump increases the chances that history will take the wrong fork, and diminishes the chances for human civilization to survive and flourish for the long haul.