Trump and His Heirs Dream of Endless Victory

[catbyte]

By falsely insisting that he won, the defeated president leaves a blueprint for the GOP’s future.

11:10 AM ET
Anne Applebaum
Staff writer at The Atlantic

snip

Since Trump won the Republican nomination in 2016, Americans have heard a lot of discussion about what exactly Trumpism is. Is it the anti-foreign-wars, anti-immigration, anti–Wall Street economic populism Trump campaigned on? Is it the nativist “national conservatism” some enthusiasts invented, post hoc, to rationalize his election? Does it imply a “draining of the swamp,” a move to rid the capital of lobbyists and sycophants? Had it been any of these things, Trumpism might have presented a problem for small-government libertarian Republicans, with their tight network of funders and their close ties to business. It might have been anathema to Democrats and progressives. It would not, however, necessarily have presented a problem for democracy, the American political system, or the rule of law.

As it turned out, Trumpism has nothing to do with economics, nothing to do with foreign policy, nothing to do with lobbyists or the business of government at all. The true nature of Trump’s “ideology” lies elsewhere: in the construction of alternative realities that make him an eternal winner, even in situations where, objectively speaking, he has lost. His slogan isn’t “America First,” in other words, but “Trump first, always and above all else.”

The appeal of this ideology is not economic or material, but rather psychological. Millions seem to be convinced that when Trump wins, they win too. He pumped money into the economy, created the biggest deficit in American history, burdened industry with tariffs, and goosed the stock market while small businesses went bankrupt—and millions of Americans believe this was brilliant economic policy. He staged a flashy meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, signed nothing, and achieved no arms control—and millions of Americans believe this was a diplomatic success. He botched the coronavirus response to such an extraordinary degree that the United States of America, a biomedical superpower, has had one of the highest death rates in the world—and yet millions of Americans still believe him when he says the virus is going to just disappear.

snip

Trump identified this part of the electorate, encouraged it, and grew it, with the help of Fox News and a host of other conspiratorial alternative-reality media sites. Now Cruz, Hawley, and probably others—including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence—hope to make use of it too. Why is Pompeo ignoring the president’s assault on the election, and instead tweeting a list of his supposed achievements? Why has Pence gone silent in the face of the most extreme challenge to the American political system in generations? The winner of the race to succeed Trump within the Republican Party, assuming it does not turn out to be Trump himself, will not be the politician who produces the most populist economic policies, who promotes the interests of the white working class, or who brings home the troops. The winner will not be someone who rescues our weakened democracy, who restores faith in government, or who builds respect for the courts and Congress.

snip

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/trumps-fantasies-are-gops-future/617549/

[tanyev]

1. Kick.