Accept that Donald Trump is not a fluke of American politics, and let it set this country free

• Former Vice President Joe Biden won, but President Donald Trump still will not concede.
• Trump is attempting an authoritarian breakthrough in the United States. By claiming that he won reelection, and trying to delegitimize the voting process, he is attempting to disenfranchise Americans so that he can retain power.
• What he's doing is extremely anti-democratic and contrary to our stated values, but Trump is not a fluke of American politics.
• Almost 70 million Americans voted for him. That's what is making this attempt at an authoritarian breakthrough possible.
• If we want to make sure this never happens again, we have to acknowledge the antidemocratic American traits that made an authoritarian like Trump so successful. We have to understand why his message works in this democrtic country.
• It's an ugly exercise of introspection, but if we do this and let go of our mythology of a perfect democracy, we can actually build a stronger democracy.
• This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.

On Thursday night before all the ballots were counted, President Donald Trump attempted to make what one sociologist calls "an autocratic breakthrough." He told lie after lie about the election being stolen by his opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden. Trump made it clear that he would hold on to the White House by hook or by crook — American democracy be damned.

His rambling speech was an attempt to wrest the powers of this country away from the voters and signal that his party should join him in disenfranchising millions of Americans. It was tyrannical. And it didn't stop even after the election had been called for his opponent.

On Saturday, after CNN and MSNBC called the election for Joe Biden, Trump again attempted to delegitimize his loss. Do not expect him to stop this until he leaves office. And even after that, Trump will always be capable of stirring up the undemocratic sentiment that carried him to the White House.

Trump's attempt at an autocratic breakthrough was possible because the presidential election of 2020 was not the blowout pollsters forecasted it would be. More Americans cast votes in this election than any other in history, but in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada, Biden pulled ahead by relatively slim margins. Yes, he received more votes than any presidential candidate in history, but Trump received the second most.

It was not supposed to be this way. America was supposed to repudiate Trump and his antidemocratic principles forcefully to make an authoritarian breakthrough not just unsuccessful, but clearly impossible. That lack of resounding repudiation ensures that his message and his tactics will live on, especially since they feed off of deep imperfections in our democracy that we Americans seldom like to acknowledge.

Conversely, if we are brave enough to take this moment acknowledge those imperfections — and accept that Donald Trump's presidency was not a fluke — they will set us free.

Democracy for some, autocracy for others

There has always been a strong streak of despotism living inside of our democracy like a parasite, weakening our country by making it impossible for millions of Americans to trust the process. It's our dark side, made most most clear in our legacy with slavery and the racism that came with it.

This legacy didn't just disenfranchise black Americans, it corrupted white Americans. It created the fascist, anti-egalitarian ideology that formed the Confederate States of America and pushed us into the Civil War. And after that it allowed the creation of antidemocratic political systems within our democracy, in which white people practiced an American style of fascism in order to hold on to power, especially in the South. That is what Jim Crow was.

None of this is a secret, Americans just don't like to talk about our history this way. In our mythology our democracy is solid, the Civil War was about "states rights," everyone gets a vote, and our politicians act in good faith.

Of course this isn't true. Yes, we have always had a peaceful transfer of power, but not everyone in this country has always had the ability to choose who has that power. For a long time this country belonged to white men, and there are some people who would like it to stay that way. Trump didn't invent that, and he didn't bring it to the United States from abroad. When he spits his vile authoritarian message he is drawing on our history.

In his book "Notes on the State of Virginia," written in 1781, President Thomas Jefferson acknowledged that slavery would not only hurt black Americans, but that it would turn white Americans into "despots." He didn't have the courage to solve that problem, and so it persisted and dug its way into the central nervous system of our democracy until Americans convinced themselves — through racism — that disenfranchising fellow citizens within a democracy was a normal part of the whole.

Just short of 200 years later in the 1960s, James Baldwin, the black intellectual and Civil Rights activist, wrote that white America's delusional belief in the perfection of its democracy and the goodness of its dealings was blinding it to the toxicity of its behavior toward Black Americans — to the way it was poisoning their country as whole. That, in turn, made it impossible to improve American democracy.

"The innocence is the crime," he wrote.

Don't embrace the ugly, but accept it

For many Americans four years of Donald Trump has stolen that innocence. The lack of civility, the mendacity, the racism, the violence, the voter suppression, it shocked them. It made them feel as if they were looking at something alien. But these are all parts of American democracy — it's just that historically they have been a portion served to black people and other minorities. What Trump has done is make this a politics for everyone. He and his supporters have embraced the most hideous part of what we are.

Accepting the duality of this authoritarian nature living in our democratic system will give us better tools to understand what kind of President this country needs to subvert it. We will always need a uniter. We will always need someone who strives for transparency and insists that every vote be counted. We will always need to fight racism. We need someone who champions those things as values, because without them we will turn into the ugliest version of America — an America that once subjected some Americans to living in a parallel oppressive system.

We cannot waver from this for money or in anger. We cannot regress. It will put us at risk of another authoritarian attempt.

And we cannot underestimate the appeal of what Trump sells. His lies about Democrats are meant to make those who stand with him feel self righteous about their hatred, and that's a seductive high. Some of his supporters would like to go back to the way things were when some Americans were disenfranchised because they believe this country belongs to white people and white people only. There are others who simply want to manipulate Trump's followers to gain power.

The difference between these groups is almost inconsequential now that we know that the logical conclusion of Trump's kind of rhetoric is demagoguery that will subvert democracy and the institutions we hold dear (by corrupting the Justice Department, for example).

In other words, the logical conclusion of Trumpism is a President who will make an authoritarian attempt.

It is important to note that Trump has created an "ism," because isms can survive individuals. And Trumpism is not only a set of political beliefs, but also a way to conduct politics — by spreading lies and misinformation, by disenfranchising people who may not be in the clan, by stoking racial divisons, by embracing nepotism and cronyism. Trumpism grasps for power for power's sake. It is a kind of brutal politics we see in weaker democracies around the world, but the seeds of it have been with us from the founding of the Republic. That is why this election was too close for comfort.

Of course, that Trumpism will live on after this presidency may not be something his supporters will live to be proud of. There are curiously few "isms" in American politics and they are generally looked down upon shamefully, McCarthyism for example. There is no Washingtonism or Lincolnism or Rooseveltism.

That is because America strives to be a pluralistic society — one in which people are allowed to be what they want to be as long as they aren't hurting other people, or hurting our democracy. "Isms" do not leave room for such unorthodoxy. "Isms" require complete fealty. "Isms "will disenfranchise their opponent and lie to the entire nation. "Isms" will arm themselves and plot to kidnap a sitting Governor, or drive to Philadelphia to demand that the democratic process of vote counting be stopped. "Isms" form militias. "Isms" justify human rights abuses.

Knowing this danger, it is imperative that we weaken Trumpism to the point that the history will recount, unequivocally, that it was without decency.

To America's credit, demagogues like Trump tend to be sticky, so to be rid of Trump after one election should be considered an accomplishment in some measure. It was very hard for Italy to get rid of Silvio Berlusconi, and France still can't shake off the Le Pen family. We did a good job holding Trump to a single term, but the work is not over.

For as long as Trumpism has power it will have the potential to make another authoritarian attempt. There are two ways to guard against this. One is to acknowledge the traits that make Americans uniquely vulnerable to Trumpism's specific form of demagoguery, and to reject politicians who manipulate or embrace them. The other is to build trust. In politics, trust is built by making people's lives better and by giving them something to believe in, not just something to be scared of.

All of this is extremely hard work that requires unsettling introspection about who Americans are. We have to let go of a false goodness, and accept the truth of our ugliness. It will make our democracy stronger if do it, and beyond that it will set us free.