Who are We, America?

On the Ellipse, in the very spot from which Donald Trump dispatched a violent mob to the Capitol in 2021, tens of thousands of people, of all ages and colors, gathered in peace Tuesday night, waving small American flags. Thousands more stood on the slope leading up to the Washington Monument.

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Kamala Harris, protected by bulletproof glass on three sides and snipers perched on top of a truck, made her last, best pitch for her candidacy. The vice president spoke the words that define this moment.

“Donald Trump has spent a decade trying to keep the American people divided and afraid of each other. That is who he is,” she said, with an index finger in the air. “But, America, I am here tonight to say: That is not who we are.”

In four days, the nation will look in the mirror and answer the question it can no longer put off: Who are we?

In 2016, many Americans did not know what they were getting into with Trump. Expectations of an easy Hillary Clinton victory lulled many into a sense of complacency.

In 2020, after a botched pandemic response and an economic collapse, Americans tossed Trump out on his ear.

But now Trump is back for a third time, darker and more erratic than ever, and he has made perfectly clear what he plans to do if returned to power. If America chooses Trump this time, it will be no aberration.

This time, no one can claim to have been fooled or unaware. This time, it will be difficult to claim that Democrats didn’t have a strong candidate or that she didn’t run a good campaign. Harris generates mass enthusiasm, she has made no major mistakes, and she has powerfully presented the case against Trump.

By our votes, or by failing to cast our votes, we are stating unequivocally who we are as a people.

Have we become so coarse that we would choose as our head of state a man whose climactic campaign rally at Madison Square Garden was a grotesque collection of four-letter words, vulgar sexual references and explicitly racist attacks against Black people, Latinos, Jews and Palestinians?

Have we become so disoriented by disinformation that, even though the economy is booming, inflation and illegal border crossings are sharply down, and crime is below where it was when Trump left office, we accept as reality Trump’s preposterous inventions about America being “destroyed” and an “occupied country” under the control of immigrant criminals?

Have we lost so much of our democratic muscle memory and civic culture over 10 years that we no longer flinch at a presidential candidate who talks of suspending the Constitution and imprisoning political opponents?

Have we become so numb to brutality that we no longer notice his support for vigilante violence and for using the military to attack Americans?

And are we willing to risk everything on a man who has clearly become more erratic and dangerous with age?

Former president Donald Trump raises a fist to the crowd at his Madison Square Garden rally in New York on Sunday. (Victor J. Blue for The Washington Post)

Americans have heard what Trump has said in his own words. He believes he has the authority to implement “the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.” He’ll implement the “largest domestic deportation operation in American history.” He would give those who attacked the Capitol in the deadly Jan. 6 riot “pardons because they are being treated so unfairly.” He would tell Vladimir Putin’s Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to NATO allies that, in Trump’s view, don’t pull their weight. He wouldn’t “give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate,” which virtually all schools have in place to prevent deadly childhood diseases. He’ll send a message to criminals with “one rough hour, and I mean real rough,” of vigilante attacks. He speaks about his political opponents as “the enemy from within” and believes they “should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or, if really necessary, by the military.” He has suggested that the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the nation’s top soldier, deserves to be executed.

He has vowed to appoint a prosecutor to “go after” President Joe Biden, his family, and “all others involved with the destruction of our elections, borders, & country itself!” He has said he will order the Justice Department “to investigate every radical district attorney and attorney general in America” and that the media “will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage,” because we are “the enemy of the people.” He has threatened “retribution” and said it is “very possible” he’ll seek to jail opponents. He has used Nazi rhetoric in saying immigrants are “vermin” who are “poisoning the blood of our country.” He has said some migrants are “not people” and suggested that, because of immigration, “we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now.” He has vowed to restore the names of Confederate generals to military bases. He has vowed to deny federal aid to states controlled by Democrats. He has threatened to blow Iran “to smithereens.” He has said he will unilaterally jettison the Constitution’s guarantee of birthright citizenship. He has expressed his desire to “be a dictator” — but only for one day.

Americans have heard the warnings from Trump’s former aides. Retired four-star Marine Gen. John Kelly, tapped by Trump to be both his White House chief of staff and secretary of homeland security, said Trump meets the “definition of fascist” and “certainly prefers the dictator approach to government.” Retired four-star Army Gen. Mark Milley, tapped by Trump to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs, called Trump “fascist to the core.” Retired four-star Marine Gen. James Mattis, tapped by Trump to be secretary of defense, said Trump makes “a mockery of our Constitution.” John Bolton, tapped by Trump to be his national security adviser, calls Trump “unfit to be president.” Mike Pence, Trump’s vice president, said his old boss, who left him for dead at the Capitol on Jan. 6, “should never be president again.”

Men such as these offered at least some pushback against Trump’s worst instincts during his first term. Next time, there would be no such restraint from the yes-men who surround him, nor from the MAGA-dominated House Republicans, whose leader, Speaker Mike Johnson, is picturing a “no Obamacare” future.

Trump’s assaults on truth, decency and democratic institutions are too many to list — I’ve been compiling them more or less weekly all year — so let’s just compare the closing arguments made by Harris and by Trump, hers at the Ellipse in D.C. on Tuesday and his at Madison Square Garden in New York on Sunday.

The warm-up acts for Harris included a woman who nearly died because she couldn’t get an abortion despite severe complications; a daughter of refugees; a woman who gets health care for her son through the Affordable Care Act; Republican farmers from Pennsylvania; and the brother of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who died from strokes the day after defending the Capitol on Jan. 6. “I’ve had enough of Trump’s politics of chaos, anger and hate. It has real and dangerous consequences for all of us,” Craig Sicknick said.

The warm-up acts for Trump? Tony Hinchcliffe, a supposed comedian, called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean” and said: “These Latinos, they love making babies. … There’s no pulling out; they don’t do that. They come inside, just like they did to our country.” He mocked a Black man’s do-rag in the audience (“What the hell is that, a lampshade?”) and spoke of Black people carving watermelons instead of pumpkins. He remarked: “Rock, paper, scissors. You know the Palestinians are going to throw rock every time. But you also know the Jews have a hard time throwing that paper,” referring to money.

Another speaker raised his middle finger to Democrats and called Trump “the greatest f---ing president.” Others called Harris “the Antichrist” who, with her “pimp handlers,” will destroy our country, and labeled Doug Emhoff “a crappy Jew,” Hillary Clinton a “sick son of a bitch” and Democrats “a bunch of degenerates.”

The Trump campaign tried to disown the “garbage” quote (then sought to accuse Biden of calling Trump supporters “garbage” in remarks referring to Hinchcliffe), but Trump disowned the disowning, calling the event “an absolute lovefest.”

Harris’s speech was a tight 30 minutes, laying out her policy agenda, reciting the threat Trump poses and calling for Americans to come together. “The fact that someone disagrees with us does not make them ‘the enemy within,’” Harris said to applause, with the White House as her backdrop in the mild, still evening. “They are family, neighbors, classmates, co-workers. They are fellow Americans. And as Americans, we rise and fall together. America, for too long we have been consumed with too much division, chaos and mutual distrust. And it can be easy then to forget a simple truth: It doesn’t have to be this way. … We have to stop pointing fingers and start locking arms. It is time to turn the page on the drama and the conflict, the fear and division.”

Vice President Kamala Harris embraces her husband, Doug Emhoff, during a campaign event at the Ellipse in D.C. on Tuesday. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)

As if in answer to the call for unity, a small number of demonstrators — I couldn’t tell whether they were for Gaza, MAGA or something else — dissented from Constitution Avenue with shouts, cowbells and, at one point, a vehicle siren.

Beckoning to the White House, Harris said: “On Day 1, if elected, Donald Trump would walk into that office with an enemies list. When elected, I will walk in with a to-do list.”

And then there was Trump, pointing fingers, naming enemies, stoking conflict, fear and division.

He rambled for 80 minutes — a typical length — including meandering disquisitions on teleprompters and Elon Musk’s rocketry.

He proclaimed that he would “invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. … Get ready to target and dismantle every migrant criminal network operating on American soil.” The last time that act was invoked, it was during World War II for the internment of Japanese Americans — many of them U.S. citizens — in one of the nation’s darkest episodes.

He led off by asking, with a straight face, “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” Four years ago, the economy had collapsed, the pandemic was raging, the Proud Boys were standing by, and Trump was about to unleash the attack on the Capitol. But the crowd responded that they were better off then.

Trump recited from his long collection of fabrications. “Crime was up 45 percent” under Biden and Harris (it’s down). It’s the “worst inflation in the history of our country” (currently 2.4 percent and was never near record highs). Harris has “imported criminal migrants from prisons and jails, insane asylums.” Federal government agencies “haven’t even responded in North Carolina” to storm damage, because “they spent their money on bringing in illegal migrants.”

He reprised his “enemy from within” accusation, called Harris “a vessel” and a “very low IQ individual,” referred to his own military leaders as “weak, stupid people,” said of China that “we would kick their a--,” and labeled Democratic leaders “vicious” and “crooked.”

With violent imagery, he spoke of a “migrant invasion” and a “campaign of violence and terror against our citizens,” and claimed Americans have been “invaded and conquered” by “vicious,” “bloodthirsty” and “savage” criminals.

None of it made much sense. One moment he said Biden and Harris “destroyed our country,” and the next he said we are on the cusp of a “new golden age” — which could be achieved “very quickly” merely by electing Trump, who will “rapidly defeat inflation” while simultaneously cutting taxes “massively.” He said he would let Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaxxer who has speculated that chemicals in drinking water turn people gay and transgender, “go wild on health.”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks at a rally for former president Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden in New York on Sunday. (Peter W. Stevenson/The Washington Post)

It was, in other words, a routine Trump speech. Americans have heard it all before. Now, they have to choose.

Will Gaza protesters withhold their votes from Harris even if it means electing a man who would doom all hope of Palestinian statehood?

Will Jews vote for Trump despite his cribbing of Nazi phrases?

Will conservatives who see that Trump has abandoned the principles of free markets, rule of law, limited government and internationalism vote for him anyway because of the pull of party loyalty?

Will those who believe in a multiracial America avert their gaze from the sort of naked racism on display at Madison Square Garden?

Will women forgive the loss of a fundamental right and give Trump the chance to name even more Supreme Court justices?

Or will we decide that we are better than this?

“These United States of America, we are not a vessel for the schemes of wannabe dictators,” Harris said from the Ellipse. “The United States of America is the greatest idea humanity ever devised.”

Gazing across the sea of humanity, peaceful and joyful, waving their “USA” and “FREEDOM” posters on the spot where the insurrectionists once massed, I felt hopeful about what Tuesday might bring — but also knowing that it just as easily might not.

Dana Milbank is an opinion columnist for The Washington Post. He sketches the foolish, the fallacious and the felonious in politics. His latest book, "Fools on the Hill: The Hooligans, Saboteurs, Conspiracy Theories and Dunces who Burned Down the House" (Little, Brown) is out September 24.

This article was originally published on The Washington Post. 
Views in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect CGS policy.