Donald Trump won and will be president for the second time. Those who voted for him will now celebrate their victory. The rest of us must prepare to live in a different America: a country where millions of our fellow citizens voted for a president who knowingly promotes hatred and division; who blatantly and shamelessly lies every time he appears in public; who planned to overturn an election in 2020 and planned to try again in 2024 if he hadn’t won.

Above all, we must learn to live in an America in which an overwhelming majority of our fellow citizens have elected a president who disregards the most fundamental values ​​and traditions of our democracy, our Constitution and even our military. Over the last decade, public opinion polls have shown that Americans’ trust in their institutions is waning. But no opinion poll could illustrate this change in values ​​more clearly than this vote. This election will make the United States a very different country.

The last time he was in the White House, the president-elect ignored ethics and security guidelines, fired inspectors general and other watchdogs, leaked classified information and, in the summer of 2020, used the Department of Homeland Security as if it were the Interior Department of an authoritarian state that “troops ” U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Coast Guard stationed in American cities. Trump actively encouraged the insurrection at our Capitol on January 6, 2021. When he left the White House, he stole secret documents and hid them from the FBI.

With a critical mass of Americans unbothered by this list of transgressions, any one of which would have ruined another politician’s career, Trump and his Vice President-elect JD Vance will now seek to transform the federal government into a new loyalty machine that serves the interests of the United States serves himself and his friends. This was the essence of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, and its architects, all Trump fans, will now try to make it a reality. Trump will surely try again to dismantle America’s civil service and replace qualified scientists and regulators with partisan staff. His allies will help him build a Justice Department that doesn’t serve the Constitution but instead focuses on harassing and punishing Trump’s enemies. Trump has talked in the past about using the Federal Communications Commission and the Internal Revenue Service to punish media organizations and anyone else who gets in his way, and now he will have a chance to try again.

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Perhaps the greater and more insidious danger is not political oppression or harassment, but corruption. Autocratic populists around the world – in Hungary, Turkey and Venezuela – have attacked institutions designed to ensure accountability and transparency in order to funnel money and influence to their friends and families, and that could happen in America too. This is not just a theoretical threat. If loyalists take over regulators and fill not only political but also former civil service positions, American skies will become more polluted and American food more dangerous. As a result of this massive shift in the country’s bureaucratic culture, Trump-affiliated companies will thrive even as America becomes less safe for consumers, workers, children and all of us.

American foreign policy will also reflect this shift toward kleptocracy. In his first term, Trump abused the powers of his office and corrupted American foreign policy for his personal gain. He pressured the Ukrainian president to launch a fake investigation into his political opponent; changed policy toward Turkey, Qatar, and other countries in a manner consistent with his business interests; even used the Secret Service to funnel government money into his private properties. In a second term, he and the people around him will have every incentive to go much further. Expect them to use American foreign policy and military power to advance their personal and political goals.

There are many things a re-elected President Trump cannot do. But there are some things he can do. One of them is to stop aid to Ukraine. The Biden administration has three months to abandon all half-measures and speed up deliveries to Ukraine before Trump forces Ukraine to surrender to Russia. If there is anything in the American arsenal that Ukraine could successfully use—other than nuclear weapons—send it now before it is too late.

Trump can also impose more tariffs – intensifying a global trade war not only against China, but also against former friends, partners and allies. “America First” will be “America Alone,” no longer Ronald Reagan’s “City on a Hill,” but just another great power animated by predatory nationalism.

Around the world, illiberal politicians seeking to undermine their own democracies will follow America’s example. Without fear of American criticism or backlash, you can expect harassment of the press and political opponents to increase in countries like Mexico and Turkey. The Russian-backed election fraud recently seen in Georgia and Moldova is expected to spread. Expect violent rhetoric in any democracy: if the American president can get away with it, others will conclude that they can too. The autocratic world, meanwhile, will celebrate the victory of someone whose contempt for the rule of law reflects and matches its own. You can bet that Trump and Vance will not promote human rights, will not care about international law, and will not strengthen our democratic alliances in Europe and Asia.

But the most difficult and agonizing changes will now take place deep within our society. The radicalization of some of the anti-Trump camp is inevitable as people begin to realize that existential problems like climate change and gun violence are not being addressed. A parallel process will take place on the other side of the political spectrum, as right-wing militias, white supremacists and QAnon cultists gain new momentum with the election of the man whose behavior they have learned to emulate over eight years. The deep divides within America are widening. Politicians are getting even angrier. Trump won by creating division and hate, and he will continue to do so in what is sure to be a stormy second term.

David A. Graham: The institutions have failed

My generation grew up believing that America could always be counted on to do the right thing, even when it was delayed: rejecting the isolationism of America First and joining the fight against Nazism; fund the Marshall Plan to stop communism; Extend the promise of democracy to all people, regardless of race or gender. But perhaps this belief was only valid for a certain period of time, a unique moment. There have been many chapters of history in which America did the wrong thing for years or decades. Perhaps we are living through such a time.

Or perhaps the truth that democracy is always a close call is always debatable. If so, then as people in other failing democracies have learned, we too must find new ways to advocate for shaky institutions and threatened ideas. For supporters of the American experiment in liberal democracy, our only hope lies in education, organization, and the creation of a coalition of people dedicated to defending the spirit of the Constitution, the ideals of the Founding Fathers, and the dream of freedom. More specifically: public policy education campaigns to replace lessons no longer taught in schools; legal teams who can fight for the rule of law in court; grassroots organizing, particularly in rural and small-town America; Citizens and journalists working to expose and combat the enormous wave of kleptocracy and corruption that is now sweeping our political system.

Many of those devastated by this outcome will be tempted to retreat into passivity – or relapse into performative radicalism. Reject both. Instead, we should focus on how to rally a sufficient number of Americans who voted for a candidate who denigrates this nation’s institutions and ideals to the cause of liberal democracy.