Majority and minority must unite

President-elect Donald Trump after securing victory in the 2024 election: “It’s time to put the division of the past four years behind us. It’s time to unite. And we’re going to try. We’re going to try. We have to try. And it’s going to happen.”

President-elect Joe Biden after securing victory in the 2020 election: “Now it is time to turn the page, to unite, to heal.”

President-elect Donald Trump after securing victory in the 2016 election: “Now it’s time for America to bind the wounds of division, we have to get together. To all Republicans and Democrats and independents across this nation, I say, it is time for us to come together as one united people. I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be President for all Americans, and this is so important to me.”

President-elect Barack Obama after securing victory in the 2012 election: “We are an American family and we rise and fall together as one nation.”

How’s that all been working out?

You get the picture. It’s a predictable knee-jerk reaction for presidents-elect, shortly after their victories, to say it’s time to unite. But they usually would prefer not to be asked exactly what that means.

Because down deep, what they’re saying is that their opponents should fall in line, should get with the program, should take a knee —whatever cliche you like.

They well know that on policy issues it’s simply not going to happen. For example, for the next four years few Democrats are going to acquiesce in more tax cuts for the well-to-do, or mass deportation of immigrants, or more restrictions on abortion, or free rein for autocratic leaders across the world. And certainly not in retribution against Trump’s opponents.

So there’s no hope for policy unity — and there shouldn’t be. Unity on policy is the desired standard in dictatorships. Democracies are messier, and that’s as it should be. People being people, they are bound to disagree on what their government should do. That’s how we get the ideas that eventually we call progress.

In 2024 a majority of the American people chose Donald Trump to lead their nation for the next four years. He was their preference, and he will proceed to lead in ways he chooses. The opposition — in this case, Democrats and their independent colleagues — will decide how to work with him, and how to challenge him. That’s how we do the democracy thing.

Presidents-elect should call for unity in our devotion to the process, not to particular policies. So long as the people agree to abide by the Constitution, its requirements and its protection of individual rights, it’s up to political leaders to persuade them which candidates to select.

The nation’s pendulum has swung one way or the other for nearly 240 years. People deserve the government they choose in a particular election, even if a sizable minority of voters would have had it the other way. But if we protect the process, democracy will continue to flourish. That’s the end around which the majority and the minority should unify.

Rick Morain is a reporter and columnist with the Jefferson Herald.