Almost exactly four years ago, a small group of us on the editorial board sat huddled around a laptop in a corner office on the 13th floor of the New York Times building in Manhattan. Like most of the rest of the country, we were in shock. It was around 11:30 p.m., and the early returns that had at first appeared to be an anomaly — Donald Trump doing far better in the rural areas of Florida than the polling had suggested he would — were repeating in North Carolina and Ohio, across Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. |
His margins of victory were paper-thin, but they were real. A former casino owner and reality-TV star who insulted everyone from military families to people with disabilities, who refused to release his taxes and stood accused of sexual assault by dozens of women, who knew nothing and cared even less about governance or international relations, was about to become the 45th president of the United States. |
We opened the next day’s editorial with three words: “President Donald Trump.” It still seemed so implausible — that title for that man — that we had to put the words on paper to remind ourselves it was real. |
The former vice president, along with his running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, made their own kind of history during a year in which the unprecedented seems to happen nearly every day. |
Biden will be the oldest person ever to assume the presidency. Harris will be the first Black woman vice president — and the first woman to be a step from the presidency, period. |
In the highest-turnout election in more than a century, and in the face of a devastating viral pandemic, Biden and Harris earned the support of an absolute majority of American voters — a remarkable feat, especially against an incumbent whose vote totals, if not his approval ratings, actually grew compared to 2016. |
But unlike Trump, who lost the popular vote that year by nearly 3 million ballots, Biden is expected to win it by 6 to 7 million. He will finish with close to 80 million votes. And assuming current leads hold up, he will have won support in all parts of the country — from the northeast to the southeast, from the upper midwest to the Sun Belt to the entire west coast. |
That is a decisive, resounding victory, and it’s worth taking time to celebrate it. |
We’ve made the case in these pages for why Biden will be a very good president. As he assumes power, we will continue to hold him to his promises, and demand that he do all he can to help the American people emerge from this awful pandemic, and begin to repair the monumental damage his predecessor inflicted on the office, on the federal government, and on American society. |
Speaking of that damage, there is a dark undercurrent to Biden’s win. As we write in today’s editorial, “Trump’s message of fear and resentment resonated with tens of millions of Americans. Trumpism will not magically disappear. If anything, its adherents will very likely find renewed energy and purpose in marshaling a new resistance movement committed to undermining and delegitimizing the incoming administration.” |
It’s already begun. Trump is doing exactly as he has threatened to for months, spouting lies and conspiracy theories about rampant corruption and voter fraud — only, of course, in the places where he’s losing. Republican lawmakers who should know better, like Senators Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham, and House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, are parroting the president’s lies, showing Americans once again who they really are. |
With his colossal ignorance and all-consuming narcissism, Trump has always posed a threat to the country, but perhaps never as much as he does in this moment — defeated, angry and with nothing left to lose. |
We will be watching closely. You should be, too. The last four years have been a long, intense and often painful test of America’s professed values and its system of government. The next two months will be an even greater test. Assuming we get through it, that is when, as we write, “the real work begins.” |
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