During the past few years, many suppositions about the U.S. system of government have come into question. You can see it in the polls showing that Americans have lost trust in everything, including medicine, media, tech, academia, and, of course, government.
In addition, the sources we once associated with expertise have pushed agendas that have contradicted all experience and hence have been rejected by vast numbers of people.
The United States is hardly alone in this. Most countries of the world today are dealing with a wrenching upheaval in politics and social order generally. Stability has turned to instability, certainty to uncertainty, and clarity to the fog of war. The resulting thicket seems to offer no way out.
Inevitably, many people have questioned whether the democratic system of choosing leaders works properly anymore. Protests following election returns are common worldwide, not necessarily because people have stopped believing in the ideal, but because they doubt that the count is accurate and the ballots are legitimate. Technology has not helped this problem, but rather introduced more doubt.
This is a major reason for the shock concerning the results of the Nov. 5 election. The Republicans not only swept the presidency and one if not both houses of Congress, but also won the popular vote, which no one really believed possible. The betting markets gave such an outcome very low odds.
Many people this year trudged to the polls with grave doubts about the relevance of what they were doing. Is the system so broken that the will of the people no longer matters in comparison with the power of the elites?
Amid this uncertainty, the election results were a real shock, for people from all sides. The people’s voice rose above all the money, manipulation, claims of fraud, uncertainties about voter ID, technology, and so much more. For years now, people have habitually found fault with nearly everything. The prediction was that it would take days, weeks, or even months to count the votes and conclude the election. Such a prospect was enormously depressing for a nation that imagines itself to be a great one.
But on Nov. 5, the results came in on a perfect schedule as the polls closed, culminating in a result for a candidate that has for years received attacks from every angle. It was the least expected conclusion to the most contentious election of our lives. It was a clean victory for Donald J. Trump, who even received the popular vote. More importantly, it was a credible result. That’s the key.
The result accomplished much. It wiped out several years of partisan agitation against the system of the Electoral College as established in the U.S. Constitution. The purpose of this institution is to grant a more even representation of the states as entities over the popular will. This is part of the federalist system established by the Founders. They designed not one state with centralized control, but a federation of states that come together for their common betterment. Wiping that structure out would have been transformative.
But with Trump’s victory in the popular vote, that is no longer an issue. It would not have changed the result, but this blessed feature of the outcome quelled the much-predicted street violence. Even Vice President Kamala Harris’s concession speech was conciliatory, and contained not even a hint of funny business or rigging. The election result was a clear expression of popular will, to which everyone on all sides had to accede.
As Harris said, this does not mean giving up principles or disappearing. It means working harder in the future for causes in which one believes, to make them ascend in the public mind, waiting to be embodied in a candidate who can carry those concerns to the halls of power.
In other words, we have been granted a peaceful transition of power. Herein lies the genius of the democratic form. It was never created or defended because it produces perfection. It is messy and difficult. Its purpose, as forged hundreds of years ago (and it can be traced back even further, to ancient times), is to provide a better solution to public discontent than war and revolution. To prevent violence, bloodshed, and social dissolution is the whole point.
And that is precisely what has happened. We had in contest two dramatically different visions of the role of government. Instead of civil war, we had ballot boxes and peace.
If you voted in the election, you know the interesting feeling of being handed a ballot and given a private space to make your selection. It confers on the individual a sense of responsibility and influence—not ultimate power, of course, but something else: a right of participation in the civic commonwealth. The remarkable thing about 2024 is that the voters were able to see how their participation makes a crucial difference.
This experience alone has done more to restore American patriotism than anything in many years. Americans could feel pride in the wisdom of the Founders. Crucially, the results echoed around the world, encouraging millions and billions to see how it is possible to go against the grain of the establishment, the media, the academic elites, and the whole system of intimidation and control, and do so in a way that is consistent with civility and public order.
Once again, America provided a beautiful lesson to the world in how it is done. It’s been many years since we could feel pride in that. Many people across the globe, watching the lockdowns unfold and the political conflicts grow ever more intense, had begun to wonder if we still had it, if this country was still capable of leading by example. Well, we did. And the example will resound all over the world, encouraging “populist” movements in all countries. We did it not through force of arms or financial pressure, but rather by being an example of light in the darkness.
We should not underestimate the power of this. Many people the world over are looking to the United States to protect free speech, guarantee election integrity, uphold the ideal of democracy, and celebrate the possibility of living together under a system of transparent integrity.
There is a long way to go. We need far-reaching reform, and everyone must hope that the new administration will be willing to do what is necessary. That said, Election Day was a wonderful start, an example to the world that freedom still works, that it is still valued here and should be everywhere.
Do you feel a sudden sense of pride in what we have here, despite all the flaws and missteps? I certainly do. It’s been a long time coming, but it seems finally to be here. For that we should all be deeply grateful.
