Trump and America’s future

As American citizens it is incumbent upon all of us to accept the outcome of this election. There must be a peaceful transfer of power. There must be hope for the success of any democratically elected leader of our country. Donald Trump inhabits that position. The defeat of the Harris/Walz ticket has been recognized and acknowledged.

The American voters have spoken with unmistakable clarity. The certainty of the outcome has spared us all the angst of election denialism that has haunted the political discourse since the last election when, with similar clarity, Joe Biden handily defeated Donald Trump.

I join those who hope for the best. It is essential to good citizenship that those who vigorously opposed Trump, including me, want our fears to be proven mistaken and our trepidation regarding Trump’s impoverished understanding of democracy proven to be misguided.

This is no longer a partisan argument. It would be perilous, however, not to recognize that there exist issues of national consequence that imperil the foundational structure of our democracy. It would be reckless to mask the grievous concerns for the future tranquility of Jewish life in America.

It would be disingenuous to suggest that the fears of a Trump presidency have vanished with his electoral triumph. It would be foolhardy to promote unity by disregarding Trump’s ominous threats to democracy, his hateful language that threatens a free press, and his reckless abuse of legal norms.

This is not a political conclusion. This is the transparent testimony of Donald Trump’s own extensive record. It does not require intense scrutiny or focused inquiry to discern the dark pockets of vitriol that punctuate Trump’s statements and speeches. It would require a fictitious reinterpretation of his vast record to color his comments as anything other than hate-riddled, vengeful, and fear-inducing. The incessant effort to find similitude between the threatening rhetoric of Trump and any other politician by creating boundary-blurring ambiguities is dangerous. Trump’s mockery of civility is different in kind from the statements of any other serious American political leader in the lifetime of any current reader.

Indeed some might consider it to be an act of patriotism to indulge a faith that Trump’s grotesque threats — to discard the Constitution, to use the military to pursue his perceived enemies, to restrict the free press (“the enemy of the people”), to avenge his detractors, and to pardon his convicted supporters — are insincere or merely an impotent expression of narcissism run amok.

Such a conclusion would be delusional. It would defy the consistency of Trump’s prior record of indecency. Such an innocuous conclusion would be impervious to his past criminal conduct and his grotesque incivility. It would also seem that indulging such a naive view of Trump’s hideous rants would defy the rationale of those who supported him. The underlying belief of those well-intentioned souls who trusted and voted for Donald Trump was that his policies and statements regarding Israel (or, for that matter the economy or immigration or anything else) were sturdy and reliable. Trump, if nothing else, is, according to many of his supporters, a man of his word. His faithful followers are confident that he says what he means, and he means what he says. In fact, the argument posits, it was the squishy flimsiness of his Democratic rival that underscored Trump’s dependability and trustworthiness.

If true, and the durability of Trump’s promises are the cornerstone of his appeal, it would appear to defy expectations for Trump not to be true to his antisemitic loyalists — Musk and Kennedy most prominently among many others — who will now shape his policy. It would be a repudiation of this faith in Trump’s steadfastness to his convictions to suggest that his threats to the media, his threats to harness the Justice Department for his own vengeful purposes, and his threats to disregard the Constitution are rickety and vacuous. To believe that his avowed policy toward Israel is irrefrangible while his threats to democracy and civil standards are meaningless suggests its own pejorative characterizations.

There are grave dangers to Jews that have surfaced with frightening regularity along with the rise and spread of authoritarian regimes. There can be little historical doubt that the moment the rights of some are restricted or dislodged, the rights of Jews are the first to be discarded. That is not conjecture. It is part and parcel of our historic consciousness. When governments are ruled by leaders who demand loyalty before honesty, fidelity before principles, faithfulness before skill or experience or wisdom, the chains of societies’ hatreds are unlocked and the Jews suffer.

Jews thrive in democracies and die under authoritarianism. Witness Russia. Watch America.

Chaos in government breeds chaos in society. Stability has nurtured Jewish cohesion and Jewish growth. Chaos has served as the chronic fulcrum that unleashes the worst instincts in society, most prominently, the vile plague of Jew-hatred — antisemitism.

The most powerful voice of fear and hatred will soon occupy the most powerful post in the world. There is nothing that is not obvious about Donald Trump. There is no reasonable assessment of Donald Trump that does not define him as a man who foments chaos and who promotes authoritarianism, along with the hate and fear that accompanies both.

We must recognize and be wary of the hatred that pollutes Donald Trump’s messaging. Whether it is a cause or a symptom of his authoritarian desires or of his chaotic instability matters little. Regardless of intent, the crooked timber of hatred always buckles toward the Jews. The roots of antisemitism are now visible.

It is vital that as human beings, and as Jews, that we believe in certain principles even though they may not be true. It is essential that we believe in a benevolent God. It is indispensable that we believe that justice must prevail, that good can overcome evil, and that true love can conquer all. Without such faith — be it blind or beneficent — our society and our Jewish participation in that society are at grave risk.

Notwithstanding the urgency and necessity of that idealistic credo, it would be inane to have faith in an unscrupulous man, as surely as it would be folly to invest trust in a corrupt character.

Oddly enough, we must hope that for the Jewish community in America to continue to flourish in the midst of the robust democracy that has nurtured our growth, Donald Trump will not act as he has promised and that he will not pursue his destructive threats. We must hope that Donald Trump does not mean what he says. That is my earnest prayer.

Jack Nelson is a longtime resident of Bergen County. For many years he practiced law in New York; now he is a business executive.

opinion