Interesting article in the New York Times:
They’re Building a Trump-Centric Movement. But Don’t Call It Trumpism.
I’ve had to edit that long article mercilessly, but click on the America Greatness link for a sense of this carbuncle on the ass of the Republican Party. Let’s see, isolationism, extreme national self-interest… yeah, that has worked out well in the past. Let’s do it some more.
What say y’all? Will this movement grow and become strong even after Trump is history?
I’m sure Bannon will return to Breitbart once his stint as mini-Rove is done and do his best to keep it alive. I hope it does survive. Anything that fractures the Pubbies along ideological lines is fine by me.
Yep - let’s hope that the Koch bothers and the Mercer family never join forces. (Background article for the curious)
Welp, I thought this was pretty interesting… apparently I’m the only one.
I know I’m only allowed one bump, so here it is: who is going to populate this new movement, if it takes off? It sounds too intellectual for the Trump base (and I do mean base). They will likely see it as elitism, mostly due to the big words. I don’t see moderate Republicans being drawn to such a backward-thinking movement, but maybe I’m wrong. I’m hoping the moderates will come crawling out from the bomb shelters where they’ve been hiding and express disgust with the gridlock created and maintained by their right-er members over the last 8+ years. I hope this movement does take off and splinters the Republican party to smithereens.
I suggest you look at the bigger picture.
The Republicans have been casting about for a half century or longer now, for some way to get the sense that they are not Republicans after all.
What I mean is, that at the core of the GOP spirit, the entire party is absolutely convinced that they are naturally a MINORITY. That is their main problem, and has been, at least since the end of the post-Civil War and Lincoln Worship period ended.
They are elitists, who genuinely believe that common working class people will NEVER do anything but grab for personal comforts; and at the same time, they are certain that heaven on Earth will be achieved, if they can just see to it that everything in the US is done for the sake of private profit, by the wealthiest people.
They know that that belief system is abhorrent to anyone who isn’t already rich, so they hide it in various ways. Since the time of Nixon and the Southern Strategy, they have hidden it primarily by flat out lying about their beliefs in various ways, in order to trick people who really shouldn’t vote for them, to do so anyway. They lie to the white racists, and pretend to support states rights (when it doesn’t interfere with interstate commerce); they lie to the anti-abortionists, and pretend that they hold life to be sacred (until someone asks them to pay for it out of their own pockets); they pretend to oppose illegal immigrants and other foreigners taking American jobs (as long as Americans stop asking to be paid a living wage).
This article you’ve listed here is just another attempt to find a nice cover story, which they can wear like a costume, to trick the isolationists and anti-immigrant subsets of America to support their otherwise purely financial agendas.
I agree with everything you’ve said about the Republicans.
What I find interesting about this “American Greatness” bullshit is that it seems to me it’s not a “nice cover story.” They’re not trying to dress up the selfish, nationalistic, isolationist, rich-get-richer and fuck the poor pov that, as you point out, has always been the subtext. This movement does not put lipstick on the pig. I believe that Trump’s rude, crude, blatant, idiocy has legitimized this “put the USA first and screw poor people and the rest of the world” attitude. Yeah, they’re using big words, but the ideas are not hidden (except to those with a third-grade vocabulary).
Am I off-base here?
No, I don’t think you’re off-base; we should be worried about the extent to which Trump and Trumpism legitimize backwards ideas.
One saving grace may be that these people have to hitch their wagon to … Donald Frickin’ Trump. As a “vessel” for this bullshit, he’s awfully leaky already, and could well fall apart at any moment. Already, for many Americans, he discredits everything he embraces; I’d expect that trend to continue, if I had to guess.
Another thing that gives me hope: the crackpots and extremists – not just on the right! – have always been with us, but their ability to spread their message outside of small circles has grown so much with the internet and social media. (Teenage me would’ve been shocked to see radical-left critiques of politics trending on Twitter, not just because we didn’t have Twitter in the 80s/90s: radical politics had to spread by other means, like pop music or physically-printed-and-distributed books or zines, which was … slow and hard. Today, it’s nearly effortless.) Still, despite the wide availability of crackpottery and extremism these days, I think it’s not got anything like the market penetration it needs in our broader culture to really take root. If these ideas continue to not thrive under current conditions, I’ll feel better – somewhat.
But yeah, it’s not good, and we should worry. 
As a side note: intellectual conservatism/reaction has long been willing to use false or flawed prophets like Trump to co-opt mass support for an anti-democratic, anti-Enlightenment agenda. The political philosopher Leo Strauss laid out this strategy semi-explicitly: Leo Strauss - Wikipedia
Grow - yes, become strong - maybe not really. As with any political philosophy, the fact that it is being discussed indicates that it is now within the dreaded “overton window”. It is now one of the myriad of ideas we can chatter about. Whereas in the past, it did not have that traction. The public has heard the ideas more during this last Presidential campaign, and will continue to hear the ideas from this administration. It is now part of the national dialog. Some portion of the population predisposed to agree with Trump will adopt these talking points (mostly through virtue signalling, I don’t expect most followers will adopt the philosophies through deep thought.) So, growth.
But become strong? As history has shown, much of the intellectual underpinnings of various flavors or Conservatism are not particularly sticky outside of the think tank world, despite the adoption of the talking points by the good soldiers. Again, not a lot of deep thought involved. The next Big Personality Conservative that comes along talking about free trade and globalism and BAM, we’re all back on that bandwagon.
Very well put! But:
Conservativism is dead for the foreseeable future. Trumpism, or whatever you want to call it, however, is alive and kicking, and won’t go down without a fight.
Thanks for continuing the discussion. This seems disturbing to me because:
“American Greatness” isn’t a matter of putting lipstick on the pig, but it is normalizing Trumpism, taking off the baseball cap, and putting it in a suit.
Call it what it is. Nationalism. (And I fully understand the implications of that particular term.)
You can put it in a suit but that won’t stop the drool running down the chin.
Egg-ZACK-ly!
I dunno, “nativism” seems a bit more precise for some of these people.
I think it is likely that the Republicans re-evaluate their stance on free trade. They used to be pretty much in favor of any trade deal (until Obama tried to get one past them).
I think that paleo-conservatism is going to make a comeback within the party but without the elitist standard bearers like Pat Buchanan. Probably someone like Ted Nugent yelling “America! Fuck Yeah!!!” from the back of an off-roading pick-up truck.
I think that Republicans will start to become more tolerant of more open racism and bigotry and this will drive a few decent people from their ranks but lets face it, if racism was going to drive you from the Republican party, you probably would have left a long time ago.
I think it is also likely that the Democrats will also adopt aspects of the “America First” ideology and pay closer attention to the working class. How the FUCK did the Democrats let a NYC billionaire drive a wedge between Democrats and the working class? It takes an almost deliberate level of neglect for the Democrats to lose that vote.
But decades of triangulation, and pandering to the donor class has left the Democrats looking a lot like Republicans on economic issues. Their continued focus on social justice issues on the heels of historic progress on social justice issues made others wonder when the Democrats would start to give a fuck about everyone else.
Trump won the Republican largely on his stance on free trade and how bad it can be for Americans when done incorrectly while the dogma had been that more trade is always good for everyone. This is the thing that differentiated him (policywise) from the other Republicans who mostly supported free trade IIRC.
You could do that, but I want to rub their noses in the Trump shit for as long as possible. Every time they advocate something, I want to remind them of the failure of Trump. We can’t let them escape their support of Trump. Trump is the tar baby of the Right. They must always use the label Trump.
(This is why I’m against adulterating the spelling of Trump. Let the history of Trump and his supporters be easy to find.)
Nativism doesn’t account for a pronounced penchant for authoritarianism.
This is the lasting effect of the Trump presidency and the reason even those who despise him won’t dump him.
“Conservatives have a breathtaking plan for Trump to pack the courts”
From another article: