America is Better than the Dark Picture They're Painting

Who knows if even they believe what they're telling us.

She says he’s a fascist. He says she’s a communist (and a fascist — and stupid). She says if he wins, he will eviscerate democracy in America. He says if she wins we won’t have a country anymore.

You know who she is and you know who he is. And you probably also know that over-the-top rhetoric in a presidential election is nothing new. We’ve heard doomsday scenarios before.

But somehow it feels different this time around. It feels uglier, nastier. Does Joe Biden really think millions of Americans who prefer Donald Trump over Kamala Harris are “garbage”? Do people who prefer him over her really think she’s a “communist”?

We know that when it’s over half the country will be miserable; that they will feel more than just defeated. They will feel crushed. And, I suspect, the bad feelings, the animosity, will hang over us for a long time, maybe until we go through this again in four years.

With two candidates that millions of voters find unappealing — and that’s being kind — it’s not exactly breaking news that a lot of Americans will be voting against one of them, not for one of them.

So here’s a question: If Kamala Harris wins, and the United States is doomed, as we’ve repeatedly been warned by Donald Trump, why does about half the country still want her to win?

And if Trump really is a fascist, as Harris claims, if he’s really someone who will damage America beyond repair, why does the other half want him to win?

Maybe it’s because voters don’t believe what they’re being told — or maybe they just don’t care anymore. However bad their side is, they figure, the other side is worse. Besides, haven’t we heard liberals say Trump was a Nazi sympathizer before? New Republic magazine recently ran a cover showing Trump as Hitler and the New Yorker had a cover with an image of Trump in a German military uniform, goose-stepping and  giving the Nazi salute. Haven’t liberals called just about every Republican a fascist or a Nazi at one time or another?

And this isn’t the first time a Republican said liberal policies would ruin the country. It’s what GOP politicians who are running for president say when they’re running against Democrats. Donald Trump recently ran a TV ad claiming, "Our country has gone to hell.” He has said the United States is a "garbage can for the world."

Trump is Hitler? Our country has gone to hell? The United States is likened to a garbage can? This feels more than just ugly and nasty. It feels un-American.

But I think it’s become noise pollution. And while we may not like it, the sludge is making its way into the bloodstream of the culture. A New York Times-Siena college poll finds that 76 percent of voters believe American democracy is under threat. A CNN poll finds that 69 percent say that Trump won’t accept the results of 2024 election.

But it’s worth remembering that we Americans have been through a lot over the years. We survived a world war, a Great Depression, then a second world war. We survived Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s blacklist in the 1950s and Richard Nixon’s enemies list in the 1970s. In between, we survived the turmoil of the 1960’s. 9/11 brought down some buildings, but it didn’t bring America down.

So, are we really supposed to believe that we’re in such bad shape that a victory for the “wrong” candidate will spell the end of America’s greatness? Are we supposed to believe that a handful of votes in a key battleground state will do more than just sway the election — that it will lead to a Fourth Reich in America? Or turn the United States into a garbage can?

I’m not buying any of it. It’s just too stupid to believe.

Both Donald Trump (especially Donald Trump) and Kamala Harris are painting a dark picture of America’s future if the other side wins. But let’s not forget that they’re doing it for their own partisan purposes. Who knows if even they believe what they’re telling the country.

Just between us, I wish they both could lose. The bad news is that’s not going to happen. The good news is that America is better than the bleak future that they’re predicting.   

We will make it through this one too.