Republican President George H.W. Bush's biographer Jon Meacham revealed in New York Times Election Day editorial that he was so surprised by how dangerous former President Donald Trump had become that he voted for Vice President Kamala Harris.
"When Donald Trump began his rise to power in 2015," Meacham wrote, "he struck me as a dangerous but recognizable demagogue…. To me, Mr. Trump was a difference not of kind — we had long contended with illiberalism in America — but of degree. Since the Civil War, no figure with such illiberal views had ever actually won the White House. Then, he proved me wrong."
Trump's 2024 campaign is often described as his third presidential run, but in fact, it's his fourth. Trump briefly ran for president in 2000 via the Reform Party, suspending his campaign in February of that year.
Trump's first presidential run as a Republican got underway in 2015. And he went on to not only win the GOP nomination, but also, defeat Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the general election.
"His concerted efforts to overthrow the November 2020 election very nearly succeeded — tangible proof that he is, in fact, willing to follow through on the authoritarian threats he so freely makes," the historian wrote. "I now see him as a genuine aberration in our history — a man whose contempt for constitutional democracy makes him a unique threat to the nation."
Meacham is supporting Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election not because she's a Democrat, but because she believes in the U.S. Constitution, liberal democracy and the rule of law.
"I wish I were overstating the case," Meacham warns. "But I am not. Given our binary system, a vote for Kamala Harris is a vote for a democratic ethos in which we can pursue lives of purpose and prosperity under the rule of law. A vote for Donald Trump puts that ethos at risk."
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Meacham adds, "Democracy is fragile and human, and its success turns on how well — or how badly — Americans manage their own appetites."