President Trump said it in all caps: "THE WORLD IS WATCHING.
Sidney Powell, attorney for President Trump
"[COVID] case numbers are spiking across most of the United States, leading to dire warnings about full hospitals, exhausted health care workers and expanding lockdowns."
New York Times, Nov. 22, 2020
"After a brief appearance at the G20’s virtual leadership summit on Saturday morning, President Donald Trump departed the White House for his golf resort in Virginia as the summit held a meeting focused on the coronavirus pandemic."
Forbes, November 21, 2020
The 2020 election should disabuse Democrats of the notion that Donald Trump was just a populist demagogue with a niche audience. Sure, the story went, he could fill arenas with an entertaining schtick and excite some guys with banners, flags, and rifles, but these visible fans are a minority, brainwashed by an echo chamber of Fox News' alternative facts. There was talk among pundits about Trump's "low ceiling" premised on the idea that Trump's support always polled below 50% and that therefore he personally, and his brand of politics, never really had full popular support. After all, he lost the popular vote in 2016, and the victory over Hillary was drawing to an inside straight.
No. Trump isn't "just" anything. The 2020 election confirmed Trump's power, not his weakness. He lost the election, barely, but his movement won. Trump's style of slash and burn won. Ted Cruz has already adopted the style. Don Junior is working with it. Lindsay Graham discovered that anger--at the Kavanaugh hearing and later in support of Trump--brought home the GOP vote. Fox News hosts who stay angry have kept their audience. The ones who attempt to "play it straight" are in trouble.
Trump-ism is real. It is a tone and style: Strong man demagogue. A lot of people like it, demand it. It took COVID, coming in from out of nowhere, to defeat him in this election. Trump leads a movement. The movement is bigger than the normal GOP electorate, bringing out over ten million additional votes over 2016. Americans watched him in office for four years. It was an informed vote. Lock people up. Pardon your friends. Fire dissenters.
Trump operates with the consent of the voters and officeholders in his Party, even when he says things that are bluntly, proudly undemocratic. The last few days--in the face of the reality of Biden's victory--a few Republican officeholders have tip-toed saying, maybe, possibly, Trump should at least let Biden get intelligence briefings, just in case your lawsuits lose. Their circumspection and limited criticism are the important thing to notice. It isn't the strong-man demagoguery; it's how he does it.
Meanwhile, Democrats and the serious voices of political punditry are missing the big picture and are voicing their comfort with the idea that Biden will actually be inaugurated, concluding that American institutions are robust and secure. See? The system works.
No it does not.
The system only "worked" because of a couple of flukes and lucky breaks. Trump's tweets, narcissism, dishonesty, wild accusations, and all around craziness were not enough to sink him. Trump's open contempt for the upcoming election did not sink him, nor is his current open effort to hold office notwithstanding the election. It took the fact that Biden had multiple paths to 270 votes and a hopeless legal case to frustrate his plan. Had there been some semi-plausible basis, this could have worked.
 |
| We are Number One. |
Meanwhile, in an updated version of Nero and Rome, in the face of skyrocketing COVID cases he conspicuously loses interest in the job, and leaves a meeting to play golf. Trump doesn't even pretend to be a serious president. Yet, still, he retains support.
The power and ambition of others' ambition are supposed to be the Constitutional checks on the executive. Ignoring elections and refusing to cede power is what happens in places Americans refer to as "Banana Republics." We send election monitors. We observe they are not yet mature democracies, like us. They are not yet accustomed to the orderly transfer of power. Their judicial system is partisan. We feel so superior.
There are cracks in Trump's wall but the bigger picture is that the wall of consent continues. Except for Romney and now GOP House leader Liz Cheney, GOP officeholders don't condemn Trump for his announced strategy: Discard the election and retain him in office. The people with credibility to say NO are leaders in his own Party. There is a simple reason for their reluctance. Trump told us in advance his plan, and 73 million people voted for him anyway. Trump voters are OK with what he is doing.
This is an important moment in American history and those of us watching it should recognize that it can happen here. It is happening here.
We will get through this this time. It isn't that we are good or our democracy strong. We got lucky.
[Note: People who wish to have comments treated seriously should sign them. Anonymous comments have a higher bar to be considered for publication.]
4 comments:
Grover Norquist wanted to cut government funding so that government would be so small you could take and drowned it in the bathtub. Well, the still-beating heart of government IS being drug by Trumpism to the border to be isolated on Ellis Island and there quietly downed in the Hudson.. Without the US Senate - Biden will have four years to flail and splash as the republic slowly dies. The question remains - who benefits by this?
I continue to be a “broken record“ on this: our elites need to pull their heads out of you-know-where and start attempting to understand the grievances that led 40% of the electorate to vote for Donald Trump. Trust in those elites cratered for valid reasons.
Calling Trump voters “racist,“ “xenophobic,“ “stupid,“ etc will just continue the processes of alienation and distrust. We need to pull the country together somehow; arrogant elite contempt is not the way.
I choose to be a bit more optimistic, but still concerned.
I agree that COVID had a lot to do with exposing the fraud but I wonder now if it really drove the vote or reinforced it. The economy remains voter's most important issue, and I think the election would have been closer if the pandemic hadn't caused a crash. As it turned out it spared us a second term and the escalation of turmoil that was building in the country over race, gender, climate change, fairness and health care issues which were all subjugated in this campaign by the virus.
Let's not underestimate the inertia to elect a woman, and a minority representative to the Presidency, which will continue and strengthen.
The movement you describe is the Republican party.
Not every vote was for Trump, but certainly driven by the fear mongering propaganda the party was spewing. Now it's paralyzed by a leader in exile and I can't believe they will tolerate it. I just don't see the apparent loyalty being any more than a short term self serving strategy that won't survive another cycle. I foresee attempts to fracture the base, which is vulnerable to internal divisions, and while there will never be another Trump, thankfully, the party will be in a leadership struggle in the near term, but unified in it's desire to wrest power back from a failed would-be despot.
Cults wither when the leader is finally exposed as impotent and corrupt. We'll see...
I think Dan Crenshaw for one, is fully capable of taking over as the head of the Trump movement in a much more competent and appealing way than Trump.
Post a Comment