A Trump campaign event in Clive, Iowa. Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times

When the Decent Drapery of Life Is Rudely Torn Off

 |9 November 2016

To say that Donald Trump’s victory was a shock may qualify as the understatement of the century. The polls were wrong. The experts were wrong. I was wrong. Almost everyone was wrong — including those in the Trump campaign who expected to lose.

His victory wasn’t just a surprise; it was an event of gigantic dimensions, its radiating effects incalculable. Mr. Trump’s win ranks among the most unlikely and stunning elections in American history. Regardless of how the Trump presidency turns out, this race will be studied a century from now.

For those of us who have been vehement critics of Mr. Trump, this is a rather challenging moment. Starting on Jan. 20, he will be the only president we have. He now has a democratic legitimacy we may regret but cannot deny, and there is such a thing as democratic grace. To those who are tempted only to rage and attack and lament what has occurred, a word of counsel to them, and to myself: We need to give Mr. Trump the chance to rise to the moment, as unlikely as we think that may be.

At the same time, we can’t possibly erase the history of the last 17 months — the words he said, the things he did, the conspiracy theories he wove, the ignorance, volatility and cruelty he showed — and our concerns aren’t going to evaporate now that he’s about to be in charge of the nuclear triad that during the campaign he didn’t even know existed.

I believed, and still believe, that he is a man with a disordered personality and authoritarian tendencies. My job is to give him a chance to prove me wrong; his job is to prove me wrong.

Among my worries is that Mr. Trump’s victory will validate his style of politics, his serrated rhetoric. The way he mistreats people will be normalized. This election has brought us to dark places. Rather than this approach being repudiated it will, for many, become a model. “All the decent drapery of life is to be rudely torn off,” in the words of Edmund Burke.

If the Trump campaign foreshadows his presidency, America under Trump will be fundamentally different than it has been — coarser, less temperate and civilized, more inward and resentful. The Republican Party will fundamentally change, from a conservative party to one that champions European-style ethnic nationalism. (The Democratic Party, whose members were certain Hillary Clinton would win, will be convulsed as it enters a period of intense recrimination.)

A few hours after Mr. Trump was declared the winner, I received a note from a friend of mine, the distinguished Christian writer Philip Yancey, who told me, “I’m surprised and befuddled, but not scared, thanks to the checks-and-balances strength of American democracy. I tremble, though, to think what an unpredictable leader offers to a world in growing crisis.” He added, “Some say God moves in mysterious ways. I say, God grants humans the freedom to move in even more mysterious ways.”

What happened on Nov. 8th was a mystery that may lead to calamity. I hope to God it won’t.

Peter Wehner, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, served in the last three Republican administrations and is a contributing opinion writer.