The positive case for Trump 2.0 (from a liberal who hates him)

Politics & Elections
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First, to be clear, it totally sucks that Harris lost. Her winning would have been a much better outcome than anything I will present below. That said, the situation is not as grim as it may first appear.

The reason is that the way in which Trump won (overwhelmingly) is actually much better for the country and our side than had he barely won in the EC while losing the popular vote (it sounds crazy but I will explain). Further, his current mental and physical condition (terrible) will both hamper his ability to do evil and make it extremely likely that JD Vance will be president within four years (these are two good things, which I will also explain). Here we go:

The big Trump win is much better than a squeaker in multiple ways

1. It’s better psychology for us

The fact that Trump has won the popular vote gives us psychological clarity: this is what the American people wanted. We ran a pretty great campaign, and there is nothing more we could have done. No self-flagellation required.

We can argue whether Joe Biden was a good president or not (I would say pretty good), but he was not popular (partially his fault–he was a terrible communicator), and he was a disaster as a candidate (totally his fault–for both running again and performing terribly). Any regular Republican would have mopped the floor with him, and had Trump behaved normally after 2020, he would have won in 2024 easily and even without much controversy. The only thing (and it’s a big one) that clouds the issue is Trump’s bad, illegal, and treasonous behavior after losing the 2020 election.

Put simply, this behavior gave us the false hope that we could win in 2024. But in any normal timeline, the Democrats with Biden as our candidate were going to have to take the hit for the all the post-pandemic pain and problems.

Now that Trump has won decisively, we can disconnect from our rage at his behavior and focus on the root causes for our loss: bad timing per above and the fact that people are deeply dissatisfied with our economy and political system.

2. Republicans are unprepared, and they will own it all.

Of the 36 stratagems, I think this one is the most applicable:

Americans incorrectly think that a switch in political party can solve our problems. Even Harris’s ideas were just bits and bobs with no hope of solving the root causes of our ills. MAGA has no hope of getting anything substantial done on the domestic front (yes, they can cause damage, but I’ll deal with that in a moment).

Republicans are unprepared to govern. They have no ideas. They will not be good at doing even the bad things they want to do. The clown car is still 100% clown.

They will fuck up, and then we will have a chance at fixing it again (the real problem will be that we ourselves could still lack the political capital and ideas to get fundamental change accomplished, but that’s a separate issue that we will have four years to work on).

3. It will make Trump look strong to the world.

Wait, it’s bad for Trump to have any advantages, right? Well…

I am a liberal not to hate Trump and make Republicans lose but to make the country and the world better. The one area where Trump could actually do some good is foreign relations. Maybe he can improve the situation with Russia/Ukraine and Israel/Palestine. Further, in both of these cases, Trump has at least indicated the desire to do things that are not necessarily inconsistent with liberal values. In order to do so, it is better for him to look like a strong leader with the American people on his side than the opposite.

I also recognize that Trump could go nuts and do terrible things in terms of foreign policy. That may even be more likely than not. My point, however, is that looking strong would help him do anything good he wants to do, while looking weak would not hinder him much from doing anything bad he wants to do. Thus, in terms of game theory, it is preferable for him to start out looking strong.

Trump’s age and health will prevent him from doing much harm (probably)

We may not all agree on how bad Trump’s health is (I think very, very bad), but I think we can agree that he is quite old and not nearly as vital as he was in 2016. This factor will hamper his ability to do harm domestically, since it takes time to use our clunky institutions to do bad things. Consider that it took Hitler, who had much more domestic power much sooner than Trump will have, five years to go from taking power in 1933 to fomenting Kristallnacht in 1938. Trump has a lot of work to do before he can, for example, start up mass deportations.

OTOH, if Trump is going to do something good in the area of foreign policy, that’s something he could do more or less right away while he still has whatever assets he has left right now.

JD Vance will probably become president

Of course, this is entirely a matter of Trump’s mental and physical health. I could see JD pulling a 25th amendment on him within a month of their taking office, and I could also see him playing Weekend at Bernie’s with Trump’s half-animated corpse until the end of their term.

But, personally, I highly doubt Trump can make it much more than a year into his term. And, as much as I despise JD for his phoniness and resent his scamming his way into the vice presidency, I think he would be a fairly normal Republican president. Again, in absolute terms, do I want him to president? No. But would I greatly prefer him to Trump? Absolutely! I think JD is a snake and a selfish self-promoter, but I don’t think he’s a genocidal maniac. Nor do I think he’s the kind of “bad person whisperer” that Trump is.

The downside to a Vance presidency is that I think he could actually be effective and help drag the GOP back to normalcy. Again, I’d prefer the GOP to be wiped out electorally, but I will gladly take their de-MAGA-fication over the opposite.

Now, I know there are those who say that Vance is Peter Thiel’s and Project 2025’s puppet, and he could be worse than Trump and all that. I don’t dismiss such fears out of hand. Nevertheless, per the above, the GOP will own what it does all the more under JD, inasmuch as he is not a charismatic figure who can dodge and obfuscate and charm the masses like Trump. I.e., he simply won’t be as good at doing evil, if that’s what he wants to do.

In sum, Trump will enter his second term with a mandate, but he’s a feeble old man who most likely will have to pass the torch to JD Vance rather quickly. Trump might even do a bit of good on the foreign policy front, but regardless, the GOP will have to own everything that happens without ambiguity.

I know many here have imagined a second Trump term as a complete cataclysm that will tear America apart. I have too. But now I am thinking that, as bad as this is, we are in a good position to sit back, wait patiently, and plan our long-term strategy to make the country and the world better.

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Please don’t.

3

Moderating: Please just ignore the thread in the future. This is pretty much a minor threadshit.

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This is all practical advice. Unfortunately I don’t think we’re practical enough to follow it. But I appreciate the ideas and mostly agree.

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A post was merged into an existing topic: Everlong88 Cornfielded Posts

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I wish I could share your optimism on this point. I think if they take the House, they will attempt to repeal the ACA and …god forbid … make cuts to Social Security and Medicare. It’s just possible though that this will fail, just as it did 8 years ago.

(And I think even MAGA senators are smart enough to realize that messing with SS would result in torches and pitchforks in the street.)

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Far, far more likely he’ll make them worse. I wouldn’t be surprised if he greenlights the use of nuclear weapons by Putin on the Ukrainians.

8

I expect the mail-in ballots to slowly move the popular vote back towards something fairly muddled. The strong win for Trump is probably going to stop being true.

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A well written, well considered opening post, mildly reassuring but grounded in reality, and with appropriate caveats and uncertainties.

I’d push back a little on the Republican leadership/Trump “owning,” in the public’s mind, any perceived or real problems (economic, etc.) or failures to address supposed problems (immigration, etc.). As long as the party is Trump’s – which it will be until 2028 and even a little beyond (a lingering penumbra), even if Vance becomes the de facto or de jure president well before then – Trump and, by extension, all Republicans are gods, incapable of error or responsibility for anything bad.

With Trump off the ticket (possibly due to being dead) in 2028, I’m guessing a majority will be in the mood for a change, and this will help Dems, especially if the economy really is doing badly by then (which is rather likely, given normal cycles, and probably worsened by impending tax policies and tarriffs)…but it won’t really be about Republicans “owning” anything, except in the sense that so many of the world’s voters (not just US) have been anti-incumbency, period, in recent years.

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It will be a very, very difficult 2-4 years.

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This is one of my many fears. I have two adult special-needs offspring. If ACA is repealed, neither will be able to receive any medical care.

Kid #1 is disgustingly healthy. Kid #2 has a lot of issues.

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This time is dangerous because the far right has a plan. They have written it out for all to see and they have control of the WHOLE government. All of it!

Trump is a useful idiot. His handlers will work hard to seize power as fast and completely as they can starting on day #1.

Trump is smoke and mirrors. Look behind the throne for the real threat.

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A couple months might be wishful thinking, but thinking that someone who is visibly enfeebled and unwell probably will not make it to age 82 is simple realism.

I was shocked this past cycle by clips of him from 2016. He was sooo much more fluent, quick–alive, basically. He just really isn’t the same man, so he doesn’t have to die in order to be greatly diminished.

He might. And it might be a Woodrow Wilson situation. Certainly some of that was going on with Biden, I’m sorry to say.

Trump is a tough SOB with an immensely strong will. I think he barely made it over the finish line this time and will not last long, but I am disinclined to put any money down on it.

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Thank you.

15

Thanks for the kind words!

I’m curious why they would receive different treatment than the Democrats.

Trump lost in 2020 mostly owing to pandemic malaise, then Harris in 2024 mostly owing to post-pandemic malaise. This is excluding the baseline malaise that people around the world seem to be feeling, which, in my perception leads to the anti-incumbency you IMO correctly point out.

I mean if they do the kind of crazy shit we fear they will. If everyone is collaborating across all three branches of government, Republicans won’t be able to say in 2028, “Oh that was just something Trump was doing; I had nothing to do with it.”

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Longer. Because modern government no longer works for people. Even if we look at global best practices, it’s hard to point to a country that we can say does it right.

Tax credit this or incentive tweak that isn’t enough. We need fundamental change, and we don’t know what to do. The difference between us and the GOP is that we have the intention to govern and make things better.

Now they get to play their game–and yeah, it’s gonna suck. But unless we truly lead the country into a new era of politics and economics, we can win but will inevitably lose again.

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Welcome to the club! I’ve been wondering this for years. Maybe it’s basically the difference between religious and non-religious mindsets.

They won’t need to. They never need to. There are things that are objectively good, that Republicans pretend to think are bad, so they can blame them on Democrats. There are other things that are objectively bad, that Republicans (more genuinely) think are good, so they can credit them to Republicans. Whatever happens, if it’s good or perceived as good, Trump will be credited. If it’s bad or perceived as bad, Democrats will have caused it, even if not a single Democrat held office or a wore a judge’s gown.

Does this sound like magic? It is. Again, religious mindset.

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I agree, but one big danger for them is overplaying their hands. Hence my recommended stratagem. Wait for them to do things; push back in a reasonable and legal way. Keep our eyes out for the big opportunity.

I’ll cite the case of Hitler again. He had virtually unlimited power right from the beginning but still had to play his cards correctly. He had, for example, to keep the military on his side. He had to work his way through many layers of legacy bureaucracy while trying to build his own.

Any false step could trigger a constitutional crisis or worse.

Yes, ultimately it comes down to power and money for them. I think, fortunately for us, they don’t want to destroy the country for irrational reasons (i.e., the corporate types have no interest in Project 2025). Trump is already getting in their way with dumb ideas like the tariff and mass deportations. Here again, they need to play their cards with care in order not to trigger blowback from the Orange One himself.

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I do think there is some truth to what you are saying, especially when it comes to disparate treatment by the media, but again, the GOP “paid” in 2020 and 2022. If you mean that they can do no wrong to their base, I agree. With Trump gone, however, I think the religious mindset he engenders will die.

20

Part of the plan of Project 2025 is to replace the bureaucracy with loyal yes men. It’s one of the first things they will start on come January 6. They saw the institutional resistance Trump had in his first term. They mean to get around that and have a plan and complete control of both houses of congress and control of the Supreme Court as well as continuing to stack the federal courts with their lackeys.

There are no longer any brakes on this train.