In some quarters of national political discourse, a theory holds that Americans elected Donald Trump not because they thought he would keep his promises but because they wanted to explode the status quo and burn down the house. This may be received wisdom.

If so, the citizens grossly undervalue the stability of the traditional state of affairs, which, for all its flaws, has served them better than they may accept. More likely, many Trump supporters are true believers, maybe not convinced he’ll build a gold-splattered wall to protect us from a nonexistent Mexican invasion but certain he would “drain the swamp” despite his long career as a creature from the black lagoon.

The thing is, some of the goods he swore he’d deliver (e.g., a return to manufacturing greatness) are all but impossible and others (say, tax breaks for billionaires, harassment of immigrants and the press) may lead to ugly consequences for all. Mix in the usual GOP voodoo that could now be realized (gutting Medicare, devastating labor unions, etc.), and it may soon be a bell-ringing hangover for those who got drunk at the Trump Winery. Further, a descent into actual autocracy is now on the table, the Constitution resting in the pocket of a careless man who may pretend to forget it’s there.

In the aftermath of the worst possible political outcome for the country, Holger Stark of Spiegel interviewed New Yorker Editor-in-Chief David Remnick, whose whole career has prepared him well for a moment he wished would never arrive. In addition to the ramifications of the appalling turn of events on Election Day, they discuss the failings of the Democrat Party, Putin’s use for Trump and the emergence of fake news. The opening:

Spiegel:

On the night of the election, you published a stunning warning that the election’s outcome was “surely the way fascism can begin.” It’s been three weeks now. Has fascism begun?

David Remnick:

No it has not and I want to be clear about what I wrote. The whole sentence, the complete thought is this: I don’t think there will be fascism in America, but we have to do everything we can to fight against it. As the Germans know better than we do, disaster can take a nation by surprise, slowly, and then all at once. My deep sense of alarm has to do with his seeming lack of fealty to constitutionalism. He seems to think it is within his rights to trample the First Amendment, to disdain the press, to punish protesters or flag-burners, to ban ethnic categories of immigrants, and so on. He has myriad conflicts of interest. He appoints people of low quality, to say the least. He lies with astonishing frequency and in stunning volume. His temperament and character is precisely what you would hate to see in your children, much less your president. We can wish all these things will magically change once he is in office, but will they?

I’ve lived through terrible presidents, we all have. I lived through the Nixon administration, which prolonged a horrific war for years and ran a criminal operation out of the White House, and I lived through the years with George W. Bush. And I lived for years in the Soviet Union and have seen the promise of democratic development turn, with Putin, into an authoritarian state. So yes, I think we should be alarmed, watchful, and, as journalists, rigorous and fearless. I think we should be alert.

Spiegel:

Similar developments have taken place in other countries as well.

David Remnick:

Trump’s election is part of an international trend that’s no less alarming, in Britain, in France, in Germany, in Austria. Vladimir Putin wanted to see this outcome no less than he would like to see nationalists and anti-Europeanists win in France. He wants to become the de facto head of an illiberal, xenophobic, hypernationalist trend in world politics.•