Yes, America, this is really who we are. Vote if you want to change it

“This is not who we are.”

After every recent political tragedy, from shooting American citizens to killing Iranian schoolchildren, someone always says that: Somehow, it’s not who we really are.

Seriously? The people running the world today are the people — mostly guys, let’s be real — who couldn’t get a prom date and probably had embarrassing potty-training accidents that haunt them to this day. Don’t overanalyze it. 

Look at anyone who holds high elected office. Does it fit or not? 

Thus, the most devastating blow to the American ego in 2026 is the realization that if you saw the Trump administration as a movie of the week, you’d have the plot twists figured out before the first commercial break. Reality is a different story. Some still don’t get it.

A clergyman I met at Reagan National Airport recently told me that our world is as filled with corruption as a Latin American animal shelter is filled with fleas. I don’t know where he came up with that analogy, but who am I to argue?

Our president told us this past week that the war in Iran wouldn’t be over until after the midterms. Of course, he’s told us on multiple occasions that the war is already over. Or that it isn’t a war at all. It’s an “excursion.” He straight-up lied to Congress and claimed the whole thing had ended within a month. For that matter, he also claimed that he’d won the war in two days by blowing up a supposed nuclear facility that he previously claimed he had “completely obliterated” a year earlier. Maybe he didn’t have a Snickers that day. He just wasn’t himself.

Why is anyone having a hard time getting this? Isn’t it blatantly obvious where we are? Can we please move on? I recently started leaning into the possibility that the great unwashed masses, after a full decade of Donald Trump, were actually ready to do so. I  felt sure they had decided to bathe and join us in reality. There has been every reason to hope so. 

After all, the Federal Reserve defied Trump’s wishes and raised interest rates. The Supreme Court pushed back on Missouri’s attempt at gerrymandering and Trump’s efforts to kill voting by mail. Outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, went after Speaker Mike Johnson for adjourning the House without taking up a vote to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Just this week, Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, a Florida Republican, released a campaign ad criticizing Trump’s hardline immigration enforcement, noting correctly that Hispanic voters feel betrayed. Finally, Sen. Mitch McConnell’s desiccated remains returned to cast a vote in the Senate. Like I say, I had hope. 

Then, I met two different couples, senior citizens from the West Coast, on a recent cross-country flight. They disapproved of the war: “Hegseth said it ended and he ran out of weapons and it keeps on going.” They disapproved of the economy: “It’s horrible.” They disapproved of how the government treated immigrants: “They killed Americans and they put people in phone booth-size cages.”  They mostly felt OK about immigration: “I don’t mind who comes over here as long as they see themselves as an American first.” They definitely disapproved of our government violating due process: “We’re a country built on laws.”

But they still loved Trump. I’m not kidding. Among the people I spoke with, there wasn’t a single person who didn’t voice a wide variety of complaints about the country. Some were sure it was all the “Dummocrats” fault. But much as they dislike the economy, the war with Iran, our immigration policy and the general atmosphere of divisiveness in our country, they just don’t blame any of that on Trump.

All I know is that in the end if the Biden administration had issued a pardon to former Trump “fixer” Michael Cohen, there would be one less thing we need to worry about. We’re spending so much time fighting over side issues, like Cohen’s return to the Trump fold, that we’re missing the big picture. It’s not like I don’t understand the backlash: Trump got convicted of multiple felonies, and yet here we are. 

I saw Australian comic Amos Gill last week at the D.C Comedy Loft, where he brought up the problem I mentioned up top. Americans look at everything going on in our country and continually cry, “This is not who we are.”

Gill considered the evidence and nodded. “But maybe it is.”

The crowd laughed eagerly, but there was an unmistakable existential sting to that punchline. The first time Trump was elected, sure, it could have been a mistake. But when the Democrats couldn’t convince the American electorate that first Joe Biden and then Kamala Harris was more electable than a convicted felon, we brought back Trump for a second act. There’s just no excuse. We knew what he was like. We could reasonably assume, based on the people he brought on board for his third presidential campaign, that he would be even more dangerous if he came back. We brought him back anyway. Some people still love him. Others still want Harris to run again in 2028. 

A good friend recently called to complain about the Trump controversy regarding foreign beef. I had to beg off. I had no more bandwidth for another scandal. I mean: measles, food contamination, wars, Michael Cohen, climate, education, immigration, healthcare and post partum psychosis is more than enough.

Again, if this were a movie, we’d all have seen it coming. Instead, I still talk to people who believe Trump is a god. I also heard from someone on my cross-country flight who told me, “Donald Trump is an agent of Satan and I can prove it.” Not exactly what you want to hear while inside a winged, enclosed metal tube traveling at 530 miles per hour, 35,000 feet above the ground. 

This is exactly who we are. 

So I must confess that I’m watching the midterm political gymnastics the way my soap-opera addicted mother used to watch “Another World” or “Secret Storm.” The FBI might unleash the hounds in certain Black, Hispanic and otherwise deep blue precincts on Election Day. Trump, meanwhile, might still try to limit mail-in voting while forcing red states to close as many polling sites as possible — particularly in Fort Worth. Bring in ICE, deport the entire state of California and let’s have a rodeo. 

And while I can enjoy the Trump soap opera at an oblique angle, I cannot entirely ignore the consequences of his actions. I fear for my grandchildren’s future. For years, our lifestyle and our politics have been backsliding, long before Trump. After all, Americans bought into “supply-side economics.” People in this country will buy damn near anything — especially if there’s an electronic coupon involved.

Yep, this is who we are.

Let’s leave further discussion of that to the comedians. The rest of us need to find a cogent and workable way out of this self-made mess.. 

For those who are worried about the “Terminator 2” problem, yeah, the dangers of AI are a real concern. Who wants to contemplate our technological offspring ending our existence?

At this point most of us are numb to the dystopian possibilities. And yet. And yet. I ask again, my brothers and sisters, how many of us will vote in the November election? Can I get an amen? James Carville once said it was all “about the economy, stupid.” Today it’s just about the elections.

Voter turnout in the U.S. hovers around 60 percent in presidential elections and closer to 40 percent in midterms. That’s one of the lowest proportions among democratic nations. Roughly one in three American adults never votes at all. 

So why should we continue to discuss the result of political decision making without addressing the deeper concern: Low turnout has fueled the destruction of our democracy. We keep on electing people to office who couldn’t hold an honest job doing dishes at a fast-food joint. Most of us already know who we want to vote for in November and, barring some kind of revelation akin to Moses parting the Red Sea, we won’t change our minds. We already know that the few and proud MAGA folks may be diminished in number but won’t change their minds about Donnie. But they’re not the majority and never have been. They only get their way if the rest of us stay home.

Sane and normal Americans need to turn up in record numbers and we also need to guarantee the sanctity of our election. Make it accessible. Make it easy. Make it smooth. Make it transparent. Make it impossible for any reasonable person on either side of the political aisle to cry foul when it’s over. That’s what makes democracy work.

That is who we have been, and who we should be again.

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This year’s election is not about issues or questions of policy. It’s about preserving the system. Free and fair elections were never a problem until Trump conned his way into D.C. 

This November, every precinct in every county must accept responsibility for the ballots and the votes. This is not a national issue, no matter how much Trump wants to make it so. It’s a local problem. 

I have covered elections, I’ve worked the polls and I vote. The greatest single blessing of the United States is that we’ve enjoyed a peaceful transfer of power after every election because we respect the results. 

The people I spoke with on my cross-country flight were all different. They were separated by age, income and politics. They disagreed with each other on many issues. But on one issue, they all agreed. Each and every one told me if they found themselves in a position to help a stranger in need, they would do so — no matter who that person was. 

Allow me the arrogance, or the naivete, to believe them. We’re not so different from each other. It is clear.  Let’s make the effort to ensure that these elections are fair, and that they deliver a clear verdict. Because that’s who we are.