The last thing I am going to write about Donald Trump.

NOTE. I am mak­ing this one excep­tion to my ear­li­er res­o­lu­tion not to get into polit­i­cal debates and acri­mo­ny, large­ly because the “if you vote for Biden you are in mor­tal sin” crowd and the “but abor­tion” crowd will soon become insuf­fer­able, and I can reduce my oppo­si­tion to Don­ald Trump to one issue that tran­scends all oth­ers. I gen­er­al­ly oppose one-issue vot­ing, but this elec­tion is dif­fer­ent. When­ev­er I hear “but abor­tion” my response is “but Jan­u­ary 6.” So I have writ­ten this post and I have pub­lished this post and hence­forth I will return to talk­ing about hap­pi­er sub­jects like why pray­ing to Mary is not blas­phe­my.

do not like Joe Biden. (I think he’s a good guy, but as pres­i­dent I don’t like him.) I think he’s too old, he’s vis­i­bly show­ing his age, I dis­agree with prob­a­bly 90% of his policies–including his sup­port for abor­tion rights, includ­ing his sup­port for same-sex “mar­riage.” But if this were an ear­li­er year, if it were a very dif­fer­ent can­di­date on the Repub­li­can side, all of that would actu­al­ly mat­ter. I would not hes­i­tate to vote for Ronald Rea­gan over Joe Biden. I would not hes­i­tate to vote for George W. Bush over Joe Biden. If the GOP did what it will not do and nom­i­nat­ed Lynne Cheney, I would vote for her over Joe Biden. But that is not the elec­tion choice we actu­al­ly do have, and for that rea­son none of those crit­i­cisms I have of Joe Biden mat­ter.

Here is what mat­ters:

•••

This is the dif­fer­ence between Joe Biden and Don­ald Trump. If Don­ald Trump wins in 2024—as he very well may—I have no doubt what­ev­er that Joe Biden will con­cede the elec­tion. I have no doubt what­ev­er that Biden’s sup­port­ers will not break into the Capi­tol build­ing on Jan­u­ary 6 to dis­rupt the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, I have no doubt what­ev­er that they will not erect a gal­lows out­side the Capi­tol and threat­en to hang Kamala Har­ris. I have no doubt what­ev­er that Joe Biden will con­duct a gra­cious tran­si­tion and show up for Trump’s inau­gu­ra­tion on Jan­u­ary 20, 2025. I have no doubt what­ev­er that Joe Biden will not behave like an enti­tled moron on Twit­ter or file thir­teen nanogazil­lion law­suits to try to over­turn state cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in red states.

That is the dif­fer­ence between Joe Biden and Don­ald Trump, and that is why I am vot­ing for Joe Biden.

•••

It used to be, back in the good old days, that losers would con­cede that they lost. Losers would go home and say, “Well, that’s okay. We’ll try again in four years.” I miss those days. I miss the days when—I remem­ber this very well—Bill Clin­ton defeat­ed George H.W. Bush and on elec­tion night Vice Pres­i­dent Dan Quayle came out to con­cede and told his sup­port­ers, “If they run the coun­try the way they ran their cam­paign, we’ll be fine.” His sup­port­ers booed, and you know what Dan Quayle did? He waved them down.

Losers did this kind of thing because they under­stood that democ­ra­cy actu­al­ly mat­ters, and free elec­tions mat­ter. Richard Nixon believed that John Kennedy cheat­ed and he was urged by many of his staff to chal­lenge the results, but Nixon refused, and the rea­son he refused was because he thought that it would desta­bi­lize our democ­ra­cy. And Nixon was right. Nixon—imagine writ­ing this sentence—was bet­ter than Don­ald Trump.

(I don’t mean that Nixon real­ly won in 1960, and I don’t mean Trump real­ly won in 2020.)

Losers behaved this way because they under­stood that, how­ev­er much their polit­i­cal ideals mat­tered, democ­ra­cy mat­tered more, and that you can only fight for the poli­cies you believe in with­in a func­tion­ing democ­ra­cy. As long as the Con­sti­tu­tion is sta­ble, you may lose, but you can keep fight­ing and try again in four years. With­out a func­tion­ing democ­ra­cy, with­out a peace­ful trans­fer of pow­er, you don’t have that. You just have more blood.

For years, the peace­ful trans­fer of pow­er in the Unit­ed States was the envy of the world, so much so that pres­i­dents com­mon­ly men­tioned it in their inau­gur­al address. In 2001, George W. Bush said: “The peace­ful trans­fer of author­i­ty is rare in his­to­ry, but com­mon in our coun­try.”

I miss that.

•••

In 2020, I told peo­ple that the rea­son I was not vot­ing for Don­ald Trump was because I believed he was an exis­ten­tial threat to the nation.

Jan­u­ary 6 proved that I was right.

One of the things my father and I bond­ed over when I was a teenag­er, and in my ear­ly twen­ties, was watch­ing pres­i­den­tial elec­tion returns, watch­ing the polit­i­cal debate pro­grams, watch­ing the inau­gu­ra­tions, talk­ing about this issue and that issue. I would love noth­ing more than to be able to do that through this elec­tion year, but I’m not going to, and I have a sim­ple rea­son why (apart from my blood pres­sure).

If you can live through Jan­u­ary 6, and Don­ald Trump is still accept­able to you, then I real­ly don’t know what I could say to con­vince you oth­er­wise. All of my rea­son and all of my facil­i­ty with words folds in the sight of such a wall. You have made your choice, and I don’t pos­sess suf­fi­cient ver­bal pow­er to com­bat it. All I can do, in my love for you, is tell you why he’s not accept­able to me.

•••

When I was study­ing lit­er­a­ture in col­lege and then grad­u­ate school, I was often told that the best con­flicts in lit­er­a­ture were not con­flicts between absolute good and absolute evil. They were con­flicts between good and good. The rea­son these con­flicts made for inter­est­ing read­ing was because it was an oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­sid­er a hier­ar­chy of val­ues, and what goods are more impor­tant than oth­er goods when they are in con­flict.

The rea­son I’m vot­ing for Joe Biden is because hav­ing a func­tion­ing democ­ra­cy is my high­est good in this elec­tion. Of course I am against abor­tion. (For exam­ple.) Of course I hate abor­tion. But it’s only pos­si­ble to fight for pro-life caus­es with­in a func­tion­ing democ­ra­cy. If I believe that Don­ald Trump is a threat to the Con­sti­tu­tion, then I can’t vote for him even if his oppo­nent is against every oth­er issue I believe in strong­ly. I’d rather have a pres­i­dent who dis­agrees with me on every­thing but still have the Con­sti­tu­tion, still have our democ­ra­cy, still have the abil­i­ty to try again in four years. I don’t trust that I would have any of that with Don­ald Trump, and Jan­u­ary 6 is all the proof I need that I am right.

If the choice is between Joe Biden and watch­ing the coun­try I love die, I choose Joe Biden. But this elec­tion breaks my heart.