What Will Happen when Trump is No More?
If there is a Republican Congress, Washington National, Cape Canaveral, and NASA Houston will all be renamed after Trump. His image will be reconstructed from bumbling grifter to icon of American Patriotism. And, if it happens during the run up to the election, he will draw 20% of the popular vote on write in ballots.
I’d love to believe that but as I said in the threads predicting doom for Biden due to polls, it’s too early to rely on anything. Even if the poll is saying something I’d like and even if the poll sounds like common sense. (Who would vote for a convicted felon?) I just can’t trust it. I do think it would have to hurt him, but I sadly can’t be sure it would guarantee a landslide victory for Biden.
This is true. I was a Republican for years and I always thought that most people who supported Republicans were fairly moderate like I was. It wasn’t until MAGA that I recognized I was projecting my own feelings onto the side I identified with, and at some point it had been radicalized without me recognizing it.
I don’t think that normalization will come any time soon even after Trump is gone. It will probably be less crazy but I think that side has been irrevocably changed. It might drift toward normalcy over the years but the new normal will never be the old normal. (Then again, that’s probably always true for better or worse.)
Sorry to disagree with those who don’t believe in demographics changes but the Trump years have been a defining event for the generations who will dominate US politics for the next 50 years. MAGA has reached its moment when Pickett’s troops have breached the Union lines and are about to be permanently dislodged by the counterattack.
It’s touch and go right now. But if the line holds in November the Christofascist right won’t get another chance in its adherents’ lifetimes.
Damn - I hope you are correct! But I generally expect the worst, and am very pleased should I be proven wrong.
I’ve lived my life that way for a while.
Within reason, that is. There’s no need to turn paranoid.
I don’t know… I feel like the racist element is in some ways the least of the evils of today’s GOP. Not that it’s not an unqualified evil, but in some ways it’s the evil we know. They’ve been more or less openly racist for a century or more now.
It’s the authoritarian bent, the personality cult stuff, the proto-dictator celebration, the disregard for the rule of law, and the blatant attempts to subvert the election process that have me most bothered. THAT stuff is relatively new, and much more distressing than mere racism.
I don’t think there will be a continuation of Trumpism per se. Comparing MAGA to a hurricane, Trump is the warm Gulf waters that powered it, and I see no other person capable of bringing that kind of massive energy to a movement.
Nature abhors a vaccum though. There will be a lot of former cult members jonesing for that sense of belonging. I can’t see it coming from any one person (though many pretenders will try). My best guess is that Christian Nationalism will merge with MAGA and white nationalism, with the former providing the political operations, and the latter providing the violence, chaos, and dirty tricks.
I found myself pondering this back when I was talking with someone who (a) kept unconvincingly assuring me he wasn’t a racist, and who (b) really had it in for those black athletes who kept, y’know, kneeling.
And, eventually, I got to wondering: look, if he’s a racist who’s savvy enough to know that he shouldn’t openly say racist stuff, and should instead try to put on an act — maybe by claiming that oh, no, it’s really about, um, let’s say, kneeling — then, sure, that’s awful, but there’s still a problem-solving thought process at work, right? Isn’t that a mindset where, if we communicate that, hey, it’s unacceptable to show overt racism, he’ll respond accordingly?
Sure, it’d be better for him to respond accordingly to the idea that racism is unacceptable, but, shit, at least that’s something.
But, for the sake of argument: what if — as he claims — he genuinely doesn’t have a racist bone in his body, and really and truly does have a passionate belief about how disrespectful it is to kneel? What if he’s not even a little bit savvy, and isn’t putting on an act, and has no thoughts of responding accordingly to ideas, but is simply nuts?
Which would be worse?
Oh no, Trump will not be buried and forgotten like Reagan nor his memory distorted and repressed. I picture his demise like a stranded whale and his funeral and its aftermath like the attempts that were once made to blow up a stranded dead whale with dynamite. Everything will remain vividly present for all the witnesses forever. It will be the talk of the town (every town) for a long time. Only with the passing of time fewer and fewer people will openly admit to having been on his (or the dynamite’s) side, but nobody will forget having been there.
This morning I was playing a bluegrass jam in a coffee shop in a crazy liberal Chicago suburb (Oak Park.) At one point, I realized one patron was speaking extremely loudly. Despite the fact that he was 3 feet across a table from the people he was with, we could hear every word he said 20 feet away in the midst of 6 pickers. At one point I went to the washroom, and could still hear him through the door.
What was so important that he had to proclaim it so loudly at 9 a.m. on a Saturday morning? You got it! “…liberal media…socialism…” A fucking Trumper broadcasting to the whole room.
I didn’t care to hear that shit, so I left the jam early. Asshole!
Shoulda walked up to him with your instrument and blasted sad trombone noises into his ear. And loudly called him a whining loser through the PA.
Morons.
Or just followed him around:
Yes, but how much of that was an outgrowth of the racism?
Sure, back in the 80s, they were racist, but then, most politicians and leaders were old white guys, so they figured it was good - they were on top, the natural order of things.
How much of the authoritarianism of today is caused by a few decades of seeing that “natural order” decaying? There’s a reason so many of them freaked out when Obama made it into the top job. They realized they couldn’t just cruise to easy wins on the back of a casually racist society anymore. They had to be more pro-active in their racism, and that leads to the authoritarianism. Purge voter lists, gerrymander districts, curtail freedom of speech, terrorize certain demographics, it all grows out of that soil of racists being afraid that they’re losing their place.
If the GOP, and their voters, stopped freaking out over people like AOC actually winning elections, the underlying push for all that stuff would no longer exist. It would be a transformative shift in their whole existence. Of course, such a shift is incredibly unlikely.
I get that feeling of vindication. I really do. Because if the shoe were on the other foot, you may be CERTAIN they’d be taunting and mocking us. However, additional mocking at that pointt would only fuel their already powerfully honed sense of grievance and might actually exacerbate or provoke some into even more deplorable behavior. However richly they might deserve it, I would keep the mocking mercifully short or avoided altogether. If there’s ever going to be any hope of healing in this country.
I wouldn’t keep it up for long. trump would quickly, blessedly, recede from my memory, like the giant pimple I once had up my ass crack.
I read an interview with some whites who were involved in the lynching of John Carter here in Little Rock in 1927. They argued that extra judicial punishments were necessary because laws were designed for civilized people. i.e. They did not believe the laws as they existed could keep black people in line.
I suspect many people support Trump because they don’t believe the current set up will keep others in line. i.e. It won’t control others in the way Trump supporters want them controlled.