I don’t have to tell you that this election, in so many ways, is unprecedented.  It’s set new lows for vulgarity.  For pandering to our basest instincts.  For deceit, outright lies, and an unabashed willingness to ignore facts and evidence.  And for how very personal it feels.

This election has also left us incredulous.  For many, we are incredulous that it’s gotten this far.  That one of the two major parties has nominated a candidate so historically unqualified.  So very dangerous and antithetical to our democratic system.  Still for others, there is incredulity at the party they thought they knew abandoning some of its most cherished principles.  Giving in to naked populism, of the nativist sort we thought only possible of the far-right parties of France or Hungary or Austria.  But certainly not here.

We always believed that our two-party system, for all its flaws and warts, invariably prevented the rise of a truly fringe candidate.  Our deliberately byzantine system of electoral checks and balances—the convoluted nomination process, the hopelessly-outdated Electoral College, and the need for national-level candidates to be funneled through one of only two acceptable channels—were put in place specifically to stem the tide of populism. We assumed that while some nut jobs might make it to the House of Representatives or, in rare instances, the Senate, the major candidates for president would always be consensus choices who represented, if not the best of American society, then certainly not the worst.  And for most of our history that has been the case.  As a former US history teacher, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the current Republican nominee is the worst major candidate our country has produced in its illustrious, almost 250-year history.

Donald Trump poses myriad dangers to our democracy.  In my mind, they sort themselves rather neatly into the actual and the potential.  The actual dangers are those that have already come to pass: the degradation of our politics, the undermining of our alliances, and the questioning of our collective national self-image.  The potential dangers, those that lurk in the not-so-distant future, involve the categorical faith in our electoral system, the legitimacy of our social contract, and the very real and terrifying possibility of a Trump presidency.

The Actual Dangers

The Ghost of Christmas Present shows us the damage that has already been done to our body politic by the phenomenon of Trumpism.  Our political discourse has devolved into gutter speak, “locker room” banter, and unsubstantiated proclamations of the grandiose.  The faith of our allies in our word and our bond has been badly shaken by some of the Republican nominee’s suppositions and casual utterances.  And, worst of all, this has led us to question who we are as a nation and what we still stand for.

The most obvious casualty of this election has been the degeneration and debasing of our public discourse.  Apparently, the size of one’s penis has a place on the national debate stage, and bragging about committing sexual assault can be brushed off as “locker room talk”.  Women can be reduced objects, Muslims to terrorists, and Mexicans to dangerous opportunists at best and criminals and rapists at worse.  It was as if the imagination of a child, raised on bedtime stories that dealt only in the crudest, most hateful stereotypes, sprung to life and was projected directly on screen for all to see.

But it wasn’t enough to ruin our domestic discourse—this candidate had to go and undermine 70 years of alliance-making by threatening to undo the network of treaties that have served the US and the global order so well.  If you are a citizen of Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania, the stakes of this election might be even higher for you than they are for the average American citizen.  Given his comments about Putin and NATO, how confident would you be that Trump would honor Article 5[1] of the NATO treaty and protect your country against the very real threat of a Russian invasion?  Think this is unthinkable?  These states are much more valuable than Crimea and, absent the guarantee of American intervention, Trump’s man-crush Putin might well be tempted.  Then there’s the issue of Japan.  Trump insists that they “pay their fair share” and casts into doubt whether our continued defense obligations would be honored in the face of North Korean aggression.  The United States hasn’t always had the best history with installing democracies or other regimes in foreign countries (see: East, Middle or America, Latin).  But the shining example of this endeavor, of perhaps the most successful US democratic intervention in modern history, is undoubtedly post-WWII Japan.  We established a democratic government, ensured its safety, and allowed it to grow and prosper.  All the while, we also benefitted from the trade that this relationship afforded.  This was true with post-war Europe and the Marshall Plan as it was with Japan.  Our alliances and security guarantees led directly to the sustained post-war economic boom in this country and have paid for themselves many times over.  To abandon them, or even to suggest doing so, is beyond folly veering into madness.

The last and most pernicious actual danger of Trumpism involves the questioning of our national self-image.  What is the United States?  Who is American?  Who do we aspire to be as a country?  The answer to these questions has shifted over time and has changed to suit our perceived identity.  There were always groups in the ascendant and groups whose rights were trampled.  But in the best version of ourselves, we were that land of opportunity that afforded immigrants a chance at a better life.  Yes, the deck was often (and still is) stacked against certain groups.  But we believed (or at very least hoped) in our heart of hearts that anyone could be American.  I’ve always believed that the beauty of America is that all it takes to truly be “American” is the desire to be so.  But Trump would have us question that.  Go back on our promise to take in and give succor to others.  He would have us build walls, administer loyalty tests, or deport those who came here only to seek the better life that all of our ancestors sought.  He would have us reject refugees, as we did during the Holocaust.  Turn a blind eye to world suffering, as we did during the Rwandan genocide.  In the best version of ourselves, we are the country that welcomes the poor and eager and helps the suffering and downtrodden, both at home and abroad.  Trump would have us turn our back on this legacy of internal and external munificence.  It is decidedly, repellently, and unacceptably un-American.

The Potential Dangers

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is here to warn us.  To warn us of the very real threat to the continued perception of our electoral system as legitimate.  To warn us that the undermining of our social contract will have real, dire, and lasting consequences.  And to confront us with the nightmare scenario of a Trump presidency should we not take every legal action at our disposal to avoid it.

Sensing imminent defeat, Trump has alleged that our electoral system is rigged and that any outcome, save his victory of course, should be questioned.  Again in the third debate he refused to state unequivocally that he would accept the result of the election and therefore the will of the American people and their chosen representatives.  I reiterate: this is unprecedented in the history of our democracy.  Never before[2] have our institutions been so maligned and blatantly disrespected.  Never before has a major candidate been unwilling to concede defeat and defer to the wishes of the electorate.  Trump’s irresponsible and petulant response to his plummeting polls is to suggest that the deck has been stacked and the game rigged by the media and our electoral officials.  These actions denigrate our democratic tradition and threaten the very legitimacy of a system that has served us in good stead for well over two centuries.  It is a shameful and irresponsible tack unbefitting of a major party candidate in whom so much responsibility is vested.

Words do indeed have consequences—and the words of the Republican nominee threaten to undermine the innate trust and belief in our democratic system of government.  It is the social contract between the American people and its government that binds our society together.  We, the citizenry, grant the government certain powers based on the precept that they will protect our interests and fairly adjudicate our disputes.  Locke spells this out in Two Treatises of Government, on which The Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution are largely based.  When Trump calls into question the motivations of the government in the form of our electoral system, he directly attacks our government, suggesting that they are contravening the true will of the people in the interests of a few.  The repercussions of these words, so callously and carelessly uttered, could echo for years if the more unhinged among his supporters also refuse to recognize a President Clinton; it could well sow the seeds of dissention and even open rebellion.

There is one final potential danger and it is the most frightening of them all: that Trump may actually ascend to the presidency.  Given his current drubbing in the national polls, his victory seems unlikely, but so too did the Brexit vote and the recent referendum in Colombia that killed the proposed peace treaty with the FARC.  In both of these cases, the polls were decidedly wrong and an electorate seemingly voted against their best interests.  It can happen here, and these examples should keep us vigilant against the dangers of complacency.  We need to mobilize ourselves and our friends and convince those still on the fence of the importance of defeating Trump in this election.  We’ve seen his cavalier attitude toward nuclear weapons, his plans to remake the Supreme Court in a reactionary mold, and either his lack of knowledge of or outright contempt for the Constitution.  His dictatorial tendencies are numerous and the havoc that he could wreak on our republic enormous with the power of the presidency behind him.  It’s our job to mobilize the vote, stay vigilant, and ensure that the only thing unprecedented about this election is the margin by which Trump loses and the ushering in of the first woman into the White House.

[1] The provision in the NATO treaty that stipulates that an attack against one member state will be considered an attack against all others.

[2] With the possible exception of the Civil War