Opinion Is this who we are?

Associate editor and columnist|
January 1, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. EST
Supporters listen as former president Donald Trump speaks during an event in Reno, Nevada, on Dec. 17. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
5 min

To ring in the new year, Post Opinions columnists are writing about the biggest questions on their beats for 2024 and beyond.

“This is not who we are.”

How many times have we heard these six words in the Trump era?

Joe Biden has used them often to describe the former president’s harshest policies at the U.S.-Mexico border, as well as after the deadly 2017 white-supremacist march in Charlottesville he says was the “epiphany” that made him decide to run for president, and again in speeches he has given about our damaged democracy.