Democracy itself is on the ballot. I know that sounds dramatic - but the stakes really are existential (Plus: Recommendations for how to get through election night)
By Thomas Zimmer, November 2, 2026
credit: iStock / Blulz60
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There is a famous quote, attributed to poet, writer, and civil rights activist Maya Angelou: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
America is obviously way past the first time with Trump and the radicalized Republican Party. But after witnessing the most bigoted, racist, Islamophobic, morally depraved campaign by a major party in modern history, it has never been more urgent than now to believe them when they are telling us who they are and what they want to do to the country.
None of this is entirely new, of course. Trump won the presidency for a second time while openly professing his desire to erect a vindictive autocracy. He even finished his 2024 election campaign with an aggressively fascistic rally at Madison Square Garden (Opens in a new window). There was really no plausible deniability for anyone two years ago. And yet more people voted to return Trump to the power of the presidency than for his Democratic opponent. A significant percentage of the population supports ethno-nationalist ideas and is staunchly opposed to the vision of a pluralistic, gender-egalitarian democratic society. There are those who believe a dose of Trumpian extremism is exactly what this country needs right now. There are also a lot of people who, at the very least, did not consider Trump’s promise of instituting a white nationalist purge a dealbreaker.
But there was also a third group that voted for Trump based on a generalized frustration with “the system.” In 2024, an overwhelming anti-incumbent sentiment and a desire to overcome the vaguely defined “status quo” led many people in this group to either withhold their support for Kamala Harris by refusing to vote at all or to actively support Donald Trump in order to throw out whoever was in charge. And as hard as that is to accept for people who follow politics closely, a lot of these people were either unaware of what the Trumpists were really planning or convinced they wouldn’t be able to implement it anyway. Unfortunately, this “deadly disbelief,” (Opens in a new window) as Michael Podhorzer has aptly called it, significantly affected turnout and helped decide the election.
I wish we could finally discard the deep-seated myths and pervasive misunderstandings that contribute to this kind of deadly disbelief far beyond just the group of people who tend to be classified as “low-information voters.” There is, for instance, this hard-to-kill idea that campaign promises don’t mean much since they’re being ditched after the election anyway. But the empirical record demonstrates the opposite: Once elected, politicians actually attempt to enact their stated agenda. There is, moreover, a widespread reluctance among mainstream observers to accept that ideology is real and the people who are in charge of the Republican Party truly are extremists sincerely pursuing an extremist project. The fact that they have united behind Donald Trump has exacerbated this problem: Among a certain segment of the voting public, Trump is still primarily perceived as a symbol of wealth and celebrity, which is how he has been able to help sell the ideological agenda of far-right extremism and make it electorally more palatable.
And so, here we are. Yet again hoping that enough people will look at the deranged campaign of the president and his party and decide to believe them. The Trumpists couldn’t possibly be any clearer that this election is not about policy disagreements. They are at war with the very idea of pluralistic democracy. They seek to redraw the boundaries of the body politic itself. And while they are at it, they are devastating the country’s public infrastructure and ravaging whatever norms of morality and ethical conduct may yet exist, accelerating the desolation of America’s political culture.
Let us grapple seriously and earnestly with the fundamental reality of American politics: For the foreseeable future, democracy itself is on the ballot in every single election.
(And at the end, I’d also like to recommend some resources for how to best get through election night and the week ahead if we want to stay well informed without losing our mind…)
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