The Bad Guys Won. So, Now What?

American voters will now get what they've wanted "good and hard.” As of January 20, 2025, we will join the ranks of the world's bad guys.

The people have spoken. The first thought that came to me when I heard the election results was an observation by one of my favorite pundits — H.L. Mencken: “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”

And good and hard indeed is what they’re going to get, “whether they like it or not,” to quote the victor. Not having lived under tyranny since independence or invaded since 1812, residing in an affluent country and largely ignorant of history and civics, Americans take too much for granted. We can boast of another achievement as a people: we have turned ourselves into an Idiocracy, in which comfort and entertainment trump education and science; ignorance and superstition prevail over knowledge and facts; and incompetence, cowardice and whim guide our leaders. Winston Churchill was fond of saying, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried.” But he also said, “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” Wise man that Churchill.

We have experienced and overcome some terribly aberrant periods in our history: slavery, anti-immigrant Know Nothingism and a surging Ku Klux Klan, the pre-World War II MAGA movement, McCarthyism. But we managed a national reset, rejected the fringe and tacked back to center every time. It was only the Civil War that required massive bloodshed to eliminate an evil institution and reunite the nation. That national attribute is now broken. Americans have lost their moral compass.

Now the bad guys have won. They are:

• Autocrats: Trump and his radical MAGA minions.

• Oligarchs: corrupt billionaires out for yet more power and riches.

• Cowards: the spineless GOP enablers who choose not to stand up to Trump.

• Dictators: Putin, Xi, Kim, Orban

• Racists: starting with Stephen Miller on down.

• Grifters: all the conmen empowered by Trump.

I feel betrayed by half of my fellow citizens. I served my country proudly for 25 years, in military intelligence followed by the Foreign Service. Seventy-eight of my fellow diplomats were killed in the line of duty in that time. We were the good guys. We promoted America as a beacon of democracy and freedom and a steadfast ally. We defended human rights and fought corruption. Now I ask myself: For what?

In Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and other countries, I met with dissidents who put everything on the line to oppose dictators.

The most memorable was award-winning Vietnamese writer, Duong Thu Huong, whose novels, banned in Vietnam, portray the spiritual poverty, hypocrisy and corruption of her country’s one-party rule. For her outspokenness Duong was expelled from the communist party and imprisoned. Over lunch in Hanoi one day, she boasted to me that “I remain here so that I can spit in their face every day.” She added, “My struggle is one that is shared by many others — to gain respect for my rights as a free citizen, here in my own country. Writing is the way I free myself; the way I make myself a free woman.”

People like Duong know that freedom and democracy must be earned, sometimes fought for. Unfortunately, too many Americans take them for granted, leaving themselves vulnerable to losing them.

Oh, so says Bruno, an effete overeducated navel gazer, you say.

Like many people, I have a non-clinical schizophrenic side to my nature. On the one hand, my rural roots and working class background tell me I’m close to “the people,” just another regular guy. But on the other hand, I am indeed an overeducated professional class denizen with a passion for PBS documentaries and microbrews. This split personality plays out in my political views as well. I’ll measure the worth of a candidate for public office by my father’s dictum: “Has he ever had to take a lunch bucket to work?” But then I want to scrutinize their résumé for education and achievements. Will I vote for a candidate because they’re “someone I’d like to have a beer with?” Or, because they have a solid platform of ideas with the brains to back it up? While folks opt for one or the other, or maybe even a combination of both, put me squarely in the corner of a solid platform backed by brains.

In any case, as of January 20, 2025, we Americans will join the ranks of the world’s bad guys. I, for one, could not in good conscience serve as a diplomat under the regime that is coming. I pity my colleagues who are serving.

Americans have made their choice. They voted with their middle finger. Actions have consequences. Rest assured a government run by fanatics implementing insane policies will give them what they want “good and hard.” Count on a wrecked economy, injustice, rampant corruption, pandemics, global disrespect and national security gifted to our enemies. Cataclysm has a way of making one reconsider one’s actions. It will, however, take years, likely decades, to play out. But by then it will be too late. That proverbial “shining city on a hill” will become a festering slum.

Woody Allen aptly sums up what we now face as a nation: “We stand today at a crossroads: One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other leads to total extinction. Let us hope we have the wisdom to make the right choice.”