While it should be obvious that Donald Trump’s 2016 victory in the presidential election was a catastrophe, sometimes the damage can be hard to quantify. How do you put a number on the disappointment women felt when they saw a sexual predator elected over a very qualified woman? How do you craft an alternate reality where dictators weren’t elevated and allies were not slighted and neglected?
But ground zero for the carnage was the Republican Party itself, which not only selected him but then was molded for four years in his amoral image. Their moral decay can be measured, and the results show what an absolute disaster Trump has been. What they consider good is not good. What they consider true is not true. Their connection to reality is gone. Their commitment to democracy is destroyed.
Virtually everyone who is not under Trump’s spell is aware of this and everyone seems to be talking and writing about it. But I don’t see a lot of good ideas for what to do about it. I don’t even see much reason to be confident that Trump and his supporters won’t have the last laugh the next time America goes to the polls.
As far as I am concerned, we are in the midst of an ongoing insurrection. It didn’t end on January 6 and it seems to be strengthening rather than weakening.
The Democrats don’t have the unilateral power to stop this tsunami of evil and stupidity, so it’s not just a matter of will power. But the will power seems to be lacking too.
If we don’t want to settle this with violence, we need to get serious about settling it with the enforcement of laws and norms, which means putting people in trial and using the Justice Department and Congress to define what flies and what does not.
Time is running short, and acting like things will be fine as they are is the best recipe for assuring that things will be the farthest thing from fine.
The Republican base has to be deprogrammed before they regain power, because as things presently stand, they will never again willingly relinquish power or allow a free and fair election.
This isn’t hyperbole, but a cool, sober assessment of the situation.
The fight must begin now because the current advantage will not last.
Indeed, it’s not hyperbole. I’m generally pretty optimistic but not of late. Unless Manchin has a major change of heart (or a brain transplant or something) or one GOP senator decides democracy is better than an ongoing political career, we are hosed. It’s a scary time. I don’t know if people on the left will lay down if the next election is stolen. Could go that way but I also see a potential for violence. All the cards get tossed in the air when there’s a major conflagration. I thought we were slowly coming upon a political realignment. Didn’t realize we could easily be coming upon the undoing of our system of government. Or another succession, perhaps this time without a civil war.
I’d like to think that if an authoritarian government rose to power, it wouldn’t stand forever. My guess is it would be temporary as it’s extremely hard to govern a people against their will. But I could see authoritarianism lasting 10, 20, even 50 years. I wouldn’t be shocked if democracy remained out of reach until all of us were long gone.
Until one senator! Rmoney? Naah… Sasse? Kidding? Murkowski? Nopes… Just like WMD in Iraq, we can look under the table, as in Dubya’s cameo visual!
Either he goes to prison, or escapes to another country. I prefer the latter.
Thanks for your comment. I want to respond to this part of it: “…or one GOP senator decides democracy is better than an ongoing political career…”.
We’ve already had *several* examples of GOP senators who’ve chosen democracy over their career. Romney is the most recent with his vote to convict Trump, but there’s also Flake, Corker, Sasse, and probably a few before them whose names are escaping me.
The problem with *one* Republican senator breaking with Trump is that it’s all too easy to destroy an individual’s career. What’s missing—and it is, to me, the single biggest mystery of DC politics* over the last 12 years—is the emergence of a faction, a caucus, of centrist Republicans similar to the Democratic Blue Dog caucus that 1) identifies a handful of issues on which they’ll make a collective stand, and 2) is willing and able to negotiate with either party to cut deals on those issues and in their own interests.
*The single biggest mystery of DC political journalism is the utter failure of anyone to get this story and write a book about it.
I’m afraid you’re right Martin and the thing is, I’m feeling so…flat-footed. I suspect many Republicans feel the same way–uncomfortable as the party careens along the precipice but afraid that jumping might only make things worse.
I wish you would make this post open so I could share it on Twitter.
Yes. This is why I’ve been so aggravated by Manchin and Sinema. This isn’t fucking 1996, where the loyal opposition is terrible but not insane and ready to install a dictator who will, rest assured, round up “others” and murder them. And when I say “others”, I mean most of the people reading this blog, their family, and friends. Yes, you. You will be a target.
Nuke the fucking filibuster, make Douglass Commonwealth, Puerto Rico, and Guam states. Pass infrastructure bills and Federal Voting Rights bills, and start passing all of the popular 65%+ approval bills that will benefit almost every single American, NOW, in time for the effects to be felt by 2022. The Republican Party must be destroyed.
If not, I just see political assassinations and insurgency as the most likely civil war scenario, rather than standing armies and pitched battles. Essentially the breakup of the US as a whole. Unless, you know, Democrats want to keep this country together and do what is necessary.
I believe that we have to keep the White House out of Republican control for at least another 8 years, and probably closer to 12, in order to avoid a Republican dictator. If I had a measly pissant $1B, I’d create a not-for-profit and donate $990,000,000 of it to that not-for-profit and hire Stacey Abrams do what she does. But what do I know, I’m nobody.
None of the things you want are going to happen. Period. The Democrats do not have the votes.
All you do with your position is to place the blame for the current state of affairs on Democrats. This discourages the base on the one hand because Democrats are so inept, and the proposals frighten Republicans who want to bail on their own party on the other.
How are you helping anyone except the Republicans?
Yes, I’m placing all the blame on Democrats, and I’m helping the Republicans.
What country do you live in again, hero?
So are you watching the PBS series, “Rise of the Nazis”?
There was the recent open letter from retired military too:
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/11/retired-brass-biden-election-487374
I have been binge watching “Babylon Berlin” on Netflix, very watchable show. People are used to thinking of Weimar Germany as very different than 2016 to 2021 USA, but I find the parallels striking. Same high amount of polarization over issues like various bigotries, tradition vs. modernization etc. – even the issues of conflict are similar.
It’s not going to be too long until we will be at the “No one could have imagined them taking a plane, slamming it into the Pentagon” moment for the likes of Manchin. He will be a singularly reviled figure in the history books, though there will be much blame to go around when the rest of the world’s democracies study the dissolution of The Great American Experiment. I really don’t think the vast majority of Washington politicians understand the gravity of what we are poised to endure, in spite of most of them living through the events of January 6. There is a very small window to avoid this, and it’s rapidly closing. Most Americans are so distracted by all the drama of reopening during the current stage of the pandemic that we are collectively playing the role of Nero, fiddling while Rome burns all around us.
I wish I could be optimistic, but the current character of this country leans toward apathy and indifference, until it’s too late to act. This attitude has infected everything we do as a country, and will be a large part of why we collapse, if it comes to that point. The right has been working hard to plant these seeds for the last couple of generations, and they are eagerly awaiting for those seeds to sprout. And we are closer than we have ever been to that point in time, since the civil war.
The thing is, as has been pointed out elsewhere, there’s a nasty strain of ethno-nationalism spreading throughout the world right now, and there’s plenty of reason to wonder what democracies will exist when the time comes to deliver the post-mortem on the American experiment. I know there’s a lot to hate about western hegemony in the 20th and 21st centuries, but I don’t see anything but worse options waiting in the wings to take over the world order. And we’re risking that. Just having Trump in office for 4 years has seriously and perhaps irreparably damaged our ability to support and maintain a passable degree of stability, but if we take a permanent nap, the future is going to be very grim. Maybe it would be anyway, but as we’ve learned repeatedly throughout this brutal new century, things are always ready to get exponentially worse with scarcely a warning.
I agree with the diagnosis. Things are as serious as a heart attack. American democracy is at stake as long as Trump controls the Republican party. Democrats must win in 2022 and 2024.
Still, I am more optimistic than most. I think the Republicans are a shrinking party and as long as 2022 is framed as “truth vs lies” and “democracy vs fascism” and “integrity vs corruption”, the Democrats will defy the fact that the midterms usually favour the opposition party. Right now the Republicans are helping with this frame. I expect primary challenges on the Republican side – against Cheney for example – will also help. Republicans in the docket will also help along with the investigation into January 6th.
It is as serious as a heart attack. The challenge for Democrats is to make the heart attack the single most important issue right up to the elections. It is the only issue.
The actual danger is “Trumpism” which is more dangerous post-Trump than with him. It’s actually better for Trump to retain personal influence as long as possible as he is deteriorating neurologically, so with the associated increasing nutty behavior he is becoming more divisive and as such a liability.
I agree that it is better for the good guys that Trump retains his influence. We want to run against him. I’m not sure what you mean by “post-Trump”. Is now post-Trump? Or is it “post-Trump” after he loses influence? I don’t think anyone except Trump can rally the party around authoritarian values at this point, and if we beat Trump we beat Trumpism. Trumpism is not ideological. It is a cult of personality.
Where do you see the danger, post-Trump?
Trump is basically a flag now, They rally around him like we pledge allegiance to Old Glory. But a flag is just a symbol.
Trump doesn’t need to be around for that, just as the Alt-right doesn’t need anyone in particular to be actually around to venerate the number eighty-eight.
Meanwhile, an actual energized Trump stimulates Democratic turnout.
Trumpism is more than only a cult of personality. It is also a methodology, lying, breaking norms, subverting the law etc. that a dominant fraction of the GOP has embraced and that will endure post-Trump.
I agree that the dominant faction of the GOP has bought into Trump’s methodology, but they are his lies, he was the one breaking norms, and he was the one subverting the rule of law. Those are precisely the reason his movement is so dangerous. That is exactly what we want to run against in 2022. The Democrats are for truth, democratic traditions and the rule of law. Republicans lie, ignore the norms that make for a democratic society and subvert the rule of law.
Further reasons to be very concerned:
https://democracycorps.com/…/trumps-engaged-party…/
We conducted a large, mostly cell phone survey with an over sample of Republicans in the 2022 battleground for the U.S. Senate, governorships, and House, and it is painfully clear Donald Trump, Lindsey Graham, and Kevin McCarthy know their party.
“We were also surprised by how much Donald Trump’s loyalist party is totally consolidated at this early point in its 2022 voting and how engaged it is. Yes, they have pulled back from historic presidential year levels: the percent scoring 10, the highest level of interest in the election, has fallen from 84 to 68 percent. But Democrats’ engagement fell from 85 percent to 57 per-cent. Republicans are following their political theater much more closely than are Democrats — producing an 11-point gap.”
This is bad news, but it does not mean the outcome of 2022 is written in stone.
If you have ever considered getting involved now is the time. Help get out the vote, help educate people in your circle, push out memes to counter the lies, educate yourself continually, join a group online or locally. The stakes have never been higher and the threat to our democracy have never been greater.
In his special report Sunday night on rebellion and the Republican party, Fareed Zakaria recommended that an “exorcism” occur in this party. Unfortunately, the two main religions in the U.S. that practice this tradition are the Catholic and Pentecostal churches-both of which are strongly tied to the Republican party. Guess Fareed will have to find some other solution to remove the demons in this party because they have been there since FDR was president. I highly recommend Zakaria’s report. It is a good summary of how an insurrection was inevitable in this country.