What's Tony Thinking

Then and Now

I’ve been thinking a lot about the reaction — well, my reaction — to Trump’s wins in 2016 and 2024. Very different this time than eight years ago. I suspect I’m not alone.

Then I was, as the Brit’s say, “gobsmacked.” Synonyms run to the “S” section of the alphabet: shocked, surprised, staggered, stupefied. Also mortified. Wondering what had become of us, and — more importantly — what would become of us, of our nation and world.

Then, after Linda and I caught our breath and she had put her Suffragette whites back in the closet, we went on high alert. One sign of which was our shift from being occasional viewers of the PBS Newshour, to being every night devotees. Every evening, “religiously” as they say, we turned to Judy Woodruff and her colleagues to hold our hands and alert us to new elements of peril.

Now? Well, for openers I wasn’t surprised Trump won. It was not, as in 2016, either unthinkable or impossible. It was quite likely. Given Kamala Harris’s strange fizzle after the high-point of the September debate, it was almost inevitable. Here we go again.

But now, rather than going to Defcon 4 Hyper-Alert, we more or less stepped back. We put some distance between ourselves and the news. We treasured the holidays, time with friends and family. As the night’s lengthened we, uncharacteristically, slept in, perhaps asking our unconsciousness to do the processing. Or maybe we’d just been exhausted by all of it.

What to make of the difference between Then and Now? Does the marked difference in our response mean we have sunk into apathy, despair and resignation? Maybe. But I don’t think so.

I would liken it to the difference between the freshman and sophomore years of college, or between the first year of a new job and a second or third year. First years of anything you are high energy, trying to figure things out and impress, over-functioning and hyper-alert to external signals, whether real or imagined. Second, and subsequent years, not so much. You’re calmer, taking a longer view and you know more about the lay of the land, where to expend energy and where not to.

Then: High Alert!, Join the resistance! All hands on deck! March with the Women!

Now: Wait and see. Pick your battles. Try to understand why Trump had now, on his third try, actually won the popular vote. And why he gained support in nearly all demographics.

Neither in 2019, when Harris first ran, nor again in 2024 could I figure out why Kamala Harris wanted to President,  or what she wanted to do or accomplish. Her campaign was a re-run of 2020 with the main argument being how awful Trump is and would be. And this time she was saddled, however unfairly, with the incumbency tag.

It also mattered that the Democrats appeared out of touch while Trump looked right, at least in part, on the issues uppermost on people’s minds. While the Biden administration had thrown a ton of money at stuff, the near term result was a ballooning deficit and inflation. And the open borders dream of the elite proved out of touch with conditions on the ground.

The Democrats have given us three consecutive Presidential candidates without sufficient electricity to light the national Christmas tree, let alone a political movement.

I would also add that the villification of Trump, the so-called Resistance, along with the widespread incidence of Trump Derangement Syndrome, has proven counterproductive. Rather than helping us to understand what’s going on, it has obscured things. Is that to say that Trump doesn’t pose any real threats to democracy or the Constitution? No. But being outraged, often with a fair bit of self-righteousness and condescension thrown in, isn’t a useful way to understand a complicated new reality.

So now we wait. The next four years could be a disaster, something that makes Trump 45 look not so bad. Maybe all the cries of “fascist” and “authoritarian” will be proven true. Or there could be some actual positives, whether because of or in spite of Trump.

It seems to me likely that this administration, like most, will be mixed bag. And, also like many others flush with victory, and holding the White House and both chambers of Congress, will be tempted to overreach, which will bring push back, whether in 2026 or 2028, or both. I could be wrong. Lord knows, I’ve been wrong about Trump plenty in the past.

Many have fretted about “normalizing Trump.” I get it. The guy is no philosopher-king. He is crude and ignoble. As Lloyd Bentsen said to Dan Quayle, “You’re no John F. Kennedy.” Trump is, in terms of style and smarts, no JFK. Weird hair to boot. But do remember that beneath the alluring glamour and wit of JFK, and the good hair, he was also the President who got us into Vietnam. You never know how it will go.

I suspect that “normalizing Trump,” as in seeing him for as what he is, an outlandish figure on the often wild and unpredictable landscape of American politics, may be our best move.