Election 2024 Could Stir Up Another Witch’s Brew of Frights for US Democracy

Eight years ago, Hillary R. Clinton seemed certain to derail Donald J. Trump’s barely begun political career. Instead, a witch’s brew of misogyny, mistakes, and the Electoral College gave us our second minority-vote president of the early 21st century.

Eight years later, here we are in the final weeks of a second presidential matchup with an equally possible stark and dark outcome, Trump versus Kamala Harris.

Demented Donald would turn America into His Own Special Hell (HOSH, not MAGA). Harris would not lead us to heaven, but she’d take us to a better place and spare us from any of Trump’s shenanigans. If she wins, she’d also finally add the United States to the list of nations together enough to elect a woman to the highest office in the land.

America’s Founding Fathers left us so much to be proud of. The Electoral College, on the other hand, is nothing to be proud of.

Now let’s examine some aspects of Election 2024, starting with the one that tops all the others: the almost laughable axiom that character counts in the race to the White House. This year, in the large, character counts for approximately zero.

The Republican candidate is a convicted felon, a sexual predator, a serial liar, a grifter, a racist, a poster boy for moral bankruptcy (and financial bankruptcy as well). None of which matters: Unfathomably, unbelievably, tens of millions of Americans will vote to put him back in the Oval Office for another four years.

Underlining the point—the irrelevance of character in Election 2024—the best comes last. A 449-page book by Vincent L. Sterling, published this June, argues (seriously) that Donald J. Trump has been chosen by God. Of course, of course; how could any character-conscious voter miss the divine clues that Sterling spies?

The Democrats pulled off a surprise by nominating little-known Tim Walz for vice president, and he returned the favor with a surprise of his own. The headline of one news report summed it up: “Tim Walz’s simple takedown of Republicans goes viral.”

Walz’s plain words, stingingly sharply, gave the Harris-Walz ticket an exhilarating liftoff: “These guys are creepy and yes, just weird as hell.”

When was the last time that major members of a political party openly opposed their chosen presidential nominee? Good for you for remembering it was only four years ago, and the candidate they couldn’t and wouldn’t vote for was Donald Trump. Among the non-Trumpers were marquee names by the scores, headed by former president George W. Bush. The nays also included three former secretaries of defense (William H. Cohen, Chuck Hagel and James Mattis) and Colin Powell, the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff who went on serve as Bush’s secretary of state.

The number of Republicans repelled by Trump is only half the story in 2024, and it’s the other half that’s rocked and shocked both parties. In addition to opposing The Donald, droves of GOPers have also publicly declared they’ll be voting for Harris. Once again there’s a glittering roster of Republican turncoats, topped off this time by one of the most committed right-wingers ever to occupy the ranks of the right. That would be former Vice President Dick Cheney, who finally showed just a touch of the spine of his daughter Liz.

Cheney not only matched his daughter, he outmatched the man he served as vice president. Former President George W. Bush has no plans to endorse anybody in 2024. According to his office, “President Bush retired from presidential politics years ago.” (Note: Bush the retiree personally revealed that his vote in 2020 went not to Trump but to Condoleeza Rice.)

National security officials normally keep their presidential politics to themselves; not so, though, in the abnormal year of 2024.

Hundreds of high-ranking security personnel have not only thrown their support behind Harris, they’ve described Trump as “impulsive and ill-informed.” They see him as lacking in leadership and subject to a “scary authoritarian streak.” There were 741 signers to the letter that lays out their views, including U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Michael Smith, the president of National Security Leaders for America.

Come November 5, none of these ingredients will decide Election 2024; that power lies solely with the Electoral College.

America’s Founding Fathers left us so much to be proud of. The Electoral College, on the other hand, is nothing to be proud of. It’s been with us for our entire history, ever since the country was formed in Philadelphia in 1787. It was a compromise, inserted into the Constitution essentially to appease slaveholders in the colonial South.

Constitutional law expert Wilfred U. Codrington III describes it as a lasting stain: “More than two centuries after it was designed to empower southern white voters, the system continues to do just that.”

Stay tuned for November 5 (or the next day, or the next…)