When Joe Biden entered the White House in 2021 it was possible to believe that Donald Trump’s reign had been an aberration.
asserted
reign → enter → 2021
The transatlantic alliance is back,” the new president declared to relieved European leaders shortly after winning the 2020 race.
asserted
president → declare → race
Trump’s defeat proved that US democracy was mechanically operational, not culturally robust.
asserted
democracy → prove → ?
His supporters tried violent subversion to prevent the inauguration of a successor.
asserted
supporters → try → successor
Republicans who failed to denounce the 6 January insurrection should have been unelectable.
asserted
who → fail → insurrection
Instead, within four years, US voters reinstated the champion of a failed coup against their cherished constitution as commander-in-chief.
asserted
voters → reinstate → chief
Opinion polls in the run-up favoured Democrats.
asserted
polls → favour → Democrats
But it is a measure of how grievously Trump has imperilled democracy that peaceful completion of that process, followed by a fair count, cannot be anticipated with confidence.
asserted
completion → imperille → confidence
The most that can be said is that the elections were not aborted, nor did they look blatantly rigged on the eve of polling, which gives hope that the balloting process can still function in theory.
asserted
process → say → theory
That is no protection against a president with a record of denying results that displease him and a party that cravenly endorses every lie and coercion he deploys to consolidate his power.
asserted
he → deny → power
With two years left in his second term, Trump has ample scope to punish disloyalty and reward sycophants.
asserted
Trump → leave → sycophants
Facing a choice between election integrity and partisan venality, precedent suggests few Republicans prefer the path of constitutional virtue.
uncertain
Republicans → face → virtue
That moral collapse in the ruling party is salient for some voters, but that group – the anti-tyranny constituency – were always going to vote Democrat.
asserted
group → rule → Democrat
In the swing-voting middle, Trump is a drag on the Republicans because people feel let down on the economy and disrespected by a president who is more interested in the construction of a White House ballroom for himself than the affordability of everyday goods for everyone else.
asserted
who → vote → everyone
A disciplined and sophisticated fascist would have focused on suffocating domestic opposition and dismantling institutional checks on the presidency, instead of launching a strategically inept and economically self-sabotaging war against Iran.
asserted
fascist → focus → Iran
That miscalculation has damaged Trump.
asserted
miscalculation → damage → Trump
It upset “America first” ideologues who thought he stood against forever wars in the Middle East.
asserted
he → upset → East
By precipitating closure of the strait of Hormuz, it landed higher bills on voters whose motive for voting Republican in 2024 had been the spike in inflation preceding that poll.
asserted
motive → precipitate → poll
Democrats can’t afford to be fussy about different flavours of anti-Trump vote.
asserted
Democrats → afford → vote
If the economy is what people care about, that is the campaign to run.
asserted
that → care → what
If a quixotic, megalomaniac foreign policy choice made in February leads indirectly to the election of a Congress better equipped to hold a rogue president to account, that would obviously be better than the scenario where the same failure passes with impunity.
asserted
failure → make → impunity
But it leaves the argument incomplete in the same way that Biden’s 2020 victory was insufficiently decisive.
asserted
victory → leave → way
The case that defenders of US democracy still haven’t landed is the one that explains Trump’s bad decisions as the inevitable consequence of his beliefs, not just disappointing meanders away off the true path.
asserted
that → land → path
If US society were truly and passionately wedded to the principles enshrined in its constitution, a campaign exposing Trump as a persistent aggressor against that foundational ethos would be unbeatable.
asserted
campaign → wed → ethos
But it has been tried and beaten.
asserted
it → try → ?
Before Biden stepped down mid-race in 2024, he sought to frame his bid for re-election as an existential contest for the soul of the US political system.
asserted
he → step → system
Trump was a despot, he said, whose embrace of the 6 January insurrection was a clear disqualification from ever being allowed near the Oval Office again.
asserted
embrace → say → Office
“Whether democracy is still America’s sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time,” he told a rally in Pennsylvania.
asserted
he → tell → Pennsylvania
When Kamala Harris took over as the Democratic nominee, she made the same point.
asserted
she → take → point
Trump was “unhinged and unstable”, seeking “unchecked power”, she said weeks before polling day.
asserted
she → seek → day
America decided the price of eggs was a more pressing concern.
asserted
price → decide → eggs
Perhaps Trump’s second term can achieve what the first one didn’t.
asserted
one → achieve → ?
Maybe the extra exposure to a more virulent strain of the virus is generating antibodies in the US body politic that the initial four-year dose couldn’t produce.
asserted
dose → generate → that
If so, we won’t have proof of it any time soon.
asserted
we → have → it
A nation that swerves dictatorship by luck, because the aspiring dictator lacked the strategic acumen to complete his mission, doesn’t look immune for the long term.
asserted
dictator → swerve → term
It is a lesson US allies learned from the false comfort they took when Biden said the old America was back.
asserted
America → learn → comfort
Slowly, European democracies are adapting to a world in which they cannot assume US friendship.
asserted
they → adapt → friendship
Reliance on the US defence umbrella and advanced technology is now recognised as a strategic vulnerability to be urgently addressed.
asserted
Reliance → recognise → vulnerability
For Britain, Trump is an engine driving closer integration with Europe.
asserted
Trump → drive → Europe
His trade policy, combining innumerate protectionism and territorial rapacity, has destroyed the flimsy case for Brexit that posited nonexistent transatlantic deals as alternatives to the EU single market.
asserted
that → combine → market
…and 8 more, not listed.
The Aporia
