Donald Trump is a nightmare — an immoral, vile, ignorant human being.

It is impossible to fully document his awfulness with brevity. Even when summarizing the worst things Trump has said and done it is difficult to know where to stop.

He calls women “dogs” — they are “animals,” “big, fat pigs,” “ugly,” and “disgusting” if they cross him or don’t please his gaze. You have to “treat ’em like shit,” they’re “horsefaces.” He makes inappropriate sexual jokes and remarks about his own daughter, about “grabbing” women “by the pussy” and kissing them without “waiting,” and admits to barging into pageant dressing rooms full of teenage girls with “no clothes” on. He mocks people with disabilities, Asians with imperfect English, including, probably, “the Japs,” and prisoners of war. Trump was sued for not renting to blacks, took it upon himself to buy full-page ads in New York papers calling for the restoration of the death penalty so we could kill black teens who allegedly raped a white woman (they were later declared innocent), and was a leader of the ludicrous “birther” movement that sought to prove Obama was an African national. He is reluctant to criticize Klansmen and neo-Nazis, and retweets racist misinformation without apology. He’s fine with protesters being “roughed up,” nostalgic about the good old days when they’d be “carried out on a stretcher,” even saying about one: “I’d like to punch him in the face.” He likewise makes light of physical attacks on journalists. He praises dictators. He threatens to violate the Constitution as a political strategy. He cheats on his wife with porn stars and pays them to keep quiet. The constant bragging of a high I.Q. (his “very, very large brain“) and his big fortune, among other things, are emblematic of his ugly narcissism. His daily rate of lies and inaccuracies is surely historic, with journeys into fantasyland over crowd sizes and wiretaps by former presidents.

And those are merely the uncontroversial facts. Trump faces nearly two dozen accusations of sexual assault. He is alleged to at times say extremely racist things, remarks about “lazy,” thieving “niggers.” His ex-wife claimed in 1990 that he sometimes read Hitler’s speeches, and Vanity Fair reported Trump confirmed this. The payment to Stormy Daniels was likely a violation of campaign finance laws — Trump’s former attorney implicated him in court. Trump is being sued for using the presidency to earn income, his nonprofit foundation being sued for illegal use of funds. Trump has almost certainly engaged in tax fraud, joined in his staff and own son’s collusion with Russia during the 2016 election, and obstructed justice.

All this of course speaks more to his abysmal personality and character than his political beliefs or actions as executive. That’s it’s own conversation, and it’s an important one because some conservatives accept Trump is not a good person but think his policies are just wonderful.

On the one hand, many of Trump’s policies are as awful as he is, and will not be judged kindly by history. Launching idiotic trade wars where he slaps a nation with tariffs and is immediately slapped with tariffs in return, hurting U.S. workers. Stoking nativist fear and stereotypes about Hispanic immigrants and Muslims, driving the enactment of (1) a ban on immigrants from several predominantly Muslim nations (doing away with vetting entirely, keeping good people, many fleeing oppression, war, and starvation, out with the bad) and limits to refugees and immigrants in general, and (2) the attempted destruction of DACA (breaking a promise the nation made to youths brought here illegally) and a “zero tolerance” policy on illegal entry that sharply increased family separations. Saying foreigners at the border who throw rocks at the military should be shot. Pushing to ensure employers are allowed to fire people for being gay or trans (and refuse them service as customers), eliminating anti-discrimination protections for trans students in public schools, and attempting to bar trans persons from military service. Voting against a U.N. resolution condemning the execution of gays.

On the other hand, we can be grateful that, to quote American intellectual Noam Chomsky, “Trump’s only ideology is ‘me.'” Trump is thoroughly defined by self-absorption. He flip-flops frequently — reportedly most influenced by the last person he speaks to — and even used to call himself more of a Democrat, advocating for a few liberal social policies while remaining conservative on business matters. He either changed his mind over time or, as I wrote elsewhere, believed running as a Republican offered the best chance at victory and thus adopted an extreme right-wing persona — an idea that doesn’t at all mean he isn’t also an awful person (rather, it’s evidence of the fact). Outside of policies that serve him personally it is difficult to know what Trump believes in — or if he even cares. He may genuinely lack empathy and have no interest in policies that don’t affect him. True, perhaps he isn’t merely playing to his base and actually has a vision for the country, but the “ideology of me” does appear preeminent. While it’s “deeply authoritarian and very dangerous,” as Chomsky says, it “isn’t Hitler or Mussolini.” And for this we can count ourselves somewhat fortunate. (Likewise, that Trump isn’t the brightest bulb in the box, speaking at a fourth-grade level, reportedly not reading that well and possessing a short attention span, lacking political knowledge, and being labeled a childish idiot by his allies.)

Next time we may not be so lucky. As hard or painful as it is to imagine, someone worse will likely come along soon enough.

One day Trump will leave the White House, and with a profound sense of relief we will hear someone declare: “Our long national nightmare is over.” That’s what Gerald Ford said to the country the day he took over from Nixon — a man corrupt, deceitful, paranoid, wrathful, and in many ways wicked (he is on audiotape saying “Great. Oh, that’s so wonderful. That’s good” when told his aides hired goons to break protesters’ legs). One wonders how many people in 1974 thought that someone like Trump would be along in just eight presidencies? If there was a lack of imagination we shouldn’t repeat it.

In significant ways, there are already foreshadows of the next nightmare. Trump opened a door. His success was inspiration for America’s worst monsters. They have seen what’s possible — and will only be more encouraged if Trump is reelected or goes unpunished for wrongdoing and nastiness. I wrote before the election:

When neo-Nazi leaders start calling your chosen candidate “glorious leader,” an “ultimate savior” who will “Make American White Again” and represents “a real opportunity for people like white nationalists,” it may be time to rethink the Trump phenomenon. When former KKK leader David Duke says he supports Trump “100 percent” and that people who voted for Trump will “of course” also vote for Duke to help in “preserving this country and the heritage of this country,” it is probably time to be honest about the characteristics and fears of many of the people willing to vote for Trump. As Mother Jones documents, white nationalist author Kevin McDonald called Trump’s movement a “revolution to restore White America,” the anti-Semitic Occidental Observer said Trump is “saying what White Americans have been actually thinking for a very long time,” and white nationalist writer Jared Taylor said Trump is “talking about policies that would slow the dispossession of whites. That is something that is very important to me and to all racially conscious white people.” Rachel Pendergraft, a KKK organizer, said, “The success of the Trump campaign just proves that our views resonate with millions. They may not be ready for the Ku Klux Klan yet, but as anti-white hatred escalates, they will.” She said Trump’s campaign has increased party membership. Other endorsements from the most influential white supremacists are not difficult to find.

It wasn’t all talk. Extreme racists got to work.

• In 2016, David Duke of KKK fame, who was once elected to the Louisiana state house, came in seventh out of 24 candidates in a run-off election for U.S. Senate. He earned 3% of the vote; about 59,000 ballots were cast for him.
• In August 2018, Paul Nehlen, an openly “pro-White” candidate too racist for most social media platforms, garnered 11% of the vote in the GOP primary for Wisconsin’s 1st District (U.S. House of Representatives). He lost, but beat three other candidates.
• John Fitzgerald, a vicious anti-Semite who ran for U.S. House of Representatives, beat a Democratic and independent candidate in California District 11’s open primary, coming in second with 23% of the vote. 36,000 people chose him. On November 6 he lost with 28% of the vote (43,000 votes).
• A Nazi named Arthur Jones was the Republican nominee for U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois’ 3rd District (though he was the only person who ran as a Republican candidate, becoming the nominee by default). He just got 26% of the vote — 56,000 supporters.
• Seth Grossman, who believes black people to be inferior, was the GOP nominee for U.S. House of Representatives from New Jersey’s 2nd District. He beat three other rivals, with 39% of the vote. He just garnered 46% of the vote in the general election. That’s 110,000 voters, just 15,000 short of the victor.
• Russell Walker, who espouses the superiority of the white race, ran for District 48 in the North Carolina state house. He won the GOP primary in May, beating his rival with 65% of the vote. On November 6 he earned 37% of the vote in his race.
• Steve West spreads conspiracy theories about the Jews, even saying “Hitler was right” about their influence in Germany. He won nearly 50% of the vote in the GOP primary for Missouri state house District 15, beating three others. On November 6 he also received 37% of the vote against his Democratic opponent.
• Steve King has served in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2003. Hailing from Iowa’s 4th District, he said whites contributed more to civilization than people of color and constantly bemoans the threat that changing demographics represents to our culture. He also endorses white nationalists because they are “Pro Western Civilization” and spends time with groups founded and led by Nazis. He won 75% of the vote in the GOP primary — 28,000 votes. Then he got 50% in the general election (157,000 votes), keeping his seat.

There were others, of course, more subtle in their bigotry — more like Trump. Overall, there was a “record breaking” number of white supremacist candidates running for office this year. In most of the cases above, America couldn’t even keep such candidates in the single digits. Many beat more normal, tolerant candidates.

Those numbers may not seem all that impressive, not high enough to warrant any fears over a more horrific candidate winning the GOP presidential nomination. But it does not always take much. Turnout for the primaries is so low only 9% of Americans chose Trump and Hillary as party nominees. More voted for others, but that’s all it took. Trump won the nomination with 13 million votes, with 16 million Republican voters choosing someone else (both record numbers). He thus won 45% of the primary votes, which is about what Mitt Romney (52%) and John McCain (47%) accomplished. In other words, it would take less than half of Republican voters in the primaries to usher a more extreme racist (or sexist or criminal or what have you) to the Republican nomination. After seeing what many conservative voters could ignore or zealously embrace about Trump, this does not seem so impossible these days. Many Trump supporters, in a tidal wave of surveys and studies, were shown to have extremely bigoted and absurd views. From there, it isn’t that hard to envision a similar situation many conservatives faced in 2016, where they voted for an awful person they disliked to continue advancing conservative policies and principles. You have to stop abortion and the gays, you have to pack the Supreme Court, and so on. Some, to their immense credit, refused to do this — not voting, voting third party, or even voting for Clinton. But of course they were a minority. (And no, if you also believe absurd things, Democrats and liberals did not swing the election for Trump.)

The day of the election I felt more confident of Clinton’s victory than I had a couple weeks before. Previously, I had predicted that Trump was “probably” going to win. Perhaps it was a foolish optimism that washed over me on election day, when I expressed that Clinton would somehow eke out a narrow victory. I — and everyone else — should have known better. The tendency of the two parties to trade the White House every eight years, Clinton’s unpopularity on the Left, Trump as a reaction to the country’s first black president, the threat of the Electoral College handing the White House to another Republican with fewer votes…all sorts of factors should have made this an easy election to predict. Perhaps many of us simply did not want to face reality, did not want to believe we lived in a country where someone so awful could win, where so many voters are just like him or simply don’t care enough about his awfulness to refuse to vote for him. But after the shock and horror at Trump’s triumph abated, I could not shake the dread that this was merely the opening salvo in a battle against increasingly dangerous, extremist candidates.

Let’s hope, whether he — and it will certainly be a straight white male, given the extremist base — comes along in mere years or many decades, that we will not make the same mistake. Whether he will win is of course impossible to say. It will depend on how passionately we protest, how obsessively we organize, how voluminously we vote.

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