Super Tuesday is over and so is any hope that Donald Trump will not quickly approach the White House.
With clear primary victories, including in California, and a Supreme Court victory that keeps him on the Colorado ballot, any belief that Trump does not have a good chance of returning to the Executive Mansion, or that the Republican Party will become away from hatred and authoritarianism, it is magical thinking.
Almost as magical as believing that Biden will somehow begin to inspire the many critical voters who have slowly been drifting away from him: young voters influenced by a campaign against their age; voters agonizing over the destruction in Gaza; voters who, despite the strength of the economy, are still impacted by inflation that makes it increasingly difficult to fill the refrigerator.
And, most of all, voters like me who are just tired.
It is incredibly disconcerting that we do not have a Democratic candidate who inspires faith, much less enthusiasm.
“Hold your nose and vote for Hillary” was not a winning strategy in 2016 (personally, I voted for her because I thought she would be a great president). But we are in the same position now as we were then: an unpopular candidate versus a useful idiot.
It is increasingly difficult to care, but increasingly dangerous not to.
When Gov. Gavin Newsom began his I'm not running for president tour last year, I was also quick to call that magical thinking an arrogant display of opportunism. And of course it didn't work out for 2024.
But I'll give it to his strategists: Newsom saw this future at the gates of Hades and created a single lane we didn't know we needed: preacher to the uncommitted.
In Inferno, Dante described the hall of hell as populated by those who did not choose a side in life, neither brazen enough to embrace evil nor strong enough to fight it.
Nowadays, we call them independent, or the disenfranchised, or the exhausted like me. Case in point: On Monday, my ballot was still unopened on the living room table.
Our numbers are growing and we will determine America's collective future. Voting for a Kennedy, a Stein, a West. Or not vote at all.
At a dinner recently, I sat next to a California university professor who pointed out that we survived Trump's first presidency. Maybe the second one isn't so bad, he argued.
It was a bit like standing in line at the slaughterhouse with a fellow calf, bellowing that he had never heard anyone complain. For a minute, I saw the point of him.
Fascist fatigue is real.
But consider this.
Toppling a democracy requires a fearful population: people so fearful for their own future and the future of their children that they will trade their rights for a perception of security. Trump is a pro when it comes to stoking these fears, and it's no accident.
It is an actual written plan that warns that “the very moral foundations of our society are in danger” and that “in many ways, the goal of centralizing political power is to subvert the family. Its purpose is to replace people's natural loves and loyalties with unnatural loves.”
These are just a few lines from the Heritage Foundation's “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,” written as a guide for what to do after a Trump victory.
The difference between Trump's first term and his second, if it happens, will be that type of organization.
When Trump first won, those who would replace democracy with Christian theocracy were unprepared. They had an agenda, but lacked the skills and discipline to fully implement it.
Lesson learned.
For the past four years, the far-right extremist element in this country has not only been emboldened: they have been organizing like a Starbucks union drive. They will be, as they have repeatedly promised, ready on day one to remake America as a place of exclusion rather than inclusion.
Trump (if he's not bankrupt) may be personally willing to foot the bill for red cloaks for women, but it's these invisible ranks of a new extremist ruling class that will make sure they comply with federal laws that not even California can avoid.
For those who don't want to hold their nose and vote for Biden, I get it. No one should have to elect a candidate they don't believe in or put someone in the White House just to avoid something worse. For those who are too tired to care, sisters and brothers, I feel you.
But those are the voters who will decide this election.
This is not Trump against Biden. It is democracy versus the disengaged, the tired, the angry, the broken.
But you can only lose democracy once.
A vote from the hall of hell is a great way to do it.
