DON'T SPEAK TOO SOON, FOR THE WHEEL'S STILL IN SPIN
I spent some time recently reviewing the political posts I’ve written over the past two years in an attempt to figure out, on a macro level, the sorts of things I got right versus what I got wrong, so as to learn from my mistakes and improve the quality of my posts. Like Gaul, my analysis is divided into three parts – before the election, between the election and the inauguration, and finally the 19 months of Trump’s presidency.
GOT WRONG (During the campaign)
1. My biggest mistake before the election was that I thought Hillary Clinton would win, possibly by a landslide. She did win the popular vote by c. 3 million, but sadly the Electoral College is what counts, and Trump won that.
2. I had plenty of company on this issue, but I was completely unaware of Trump’s close cooperation with Russia before and during the campaign.
GOT RIGHT (During the campaign)
1. I said that Donald Trump was both corrupt and totally ignorant of virtually everything that a president needs to know; and that a Trump presidency would be a threat to American democracy. Nothing that happened since then has changed my mind on those two points.
2. I also insisted that any vote for the Greens and Libertarians would help elect Donald Trump, which turned out to be true. The cumulative vote totals of those two “third parties” did indeed exceed the margin of Trump’s win in key battleground states. If those “independent” voters continue to indulge their fantasies in 2018 and 2020, they’ll help perpetuate the Trump oligarchy.
GOT WRONG (During the interval between the election and the inauguration)
1. On the Democratic side, I mistakenly assumed that Democrats would find a central figure they could rally around, and I thought Elizabeth Warren was the logical choice. Warren has done her part, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the efforts of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer in leading their congressional minorities, but there’s obviously no single leader of the Democratic Party. And that’s OK. In the fullness of time – i.e. after the midterm elections – prominent (and maybe not so prominent) Democrats will begin to sort out the party leadership question.
2. On the Republican side, I imagined that Donald Trump was reasonably sane, and at least a little bit savvy. He’s shown himself to be neither. If he were maybe 25% smarter and not suffering from obvious cognitive decline, his popularity might actually exceed 50%. But then he wouldn’t be Donald Trump.
3. Also on the Republican side, I expected that at least a few congressional Republicans would actively work to curb Trump’s excesses, either out of principle or (in the case of people he insulted during the campaign, like Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and John McCain) out of desire for revenge. Boy, did I badly underestimate the rot at the heart of the GOP. Apart from McCain, who’s dying and has nothing to lose, congressional Republicans care only about pleasing their billionaire donor class and not offending the Base so as to avoid being primaried when they’re up for re-election.
GOT RIGHT (During the interval between the election and the inauguration)
1. I was right about some relatively minor things, like the impossibility of altering the outcome of the election via Jill Stein’s recount lawsuit or hoping for “faithless electors” in the Electoral College.
GOT WRONG (During the Trump presidency)
1. I underestimated Trump’s hatred of Barack Obama. The main thrust of Trump’s presidency (over and above, or maybe under and beneath the congressional Republicans’ lust for tax cuts to benefit their billionaire overlords) has been to undo as much of Obama’s legacy as possible.
GOT RIGHT (During the Trump presidency)
1. I discovered, and quickly embraced, what was initially regarded as a wild-eyed conspiracy theory about Trump’s collusion with Russia – not only during the campaign, but before and after. We were right and the skeptics were wrong. The Trump camp has gone from “no collusion” to “collusion isn’t illegal.” Soon their position will be “collusion is good,” and then “let’s abandon our traditional friends and alliances and let Vladimir Putin direct our foreign policy.” Oh, wait. We’ve already arrived at that last point. Pretty soon they’ll advocate for mandatory Russian language classes in public schools.
2. I noticed and wrote about Trump’s cognitive decline when the topic was taboo in mainstream media. MSM hasn’t exactly embraced that label, but they’re at least willing to talk about it, even if there’s still a certain scolding tone when they write about people who are willing to state the obvious.
3. Speaking of the mainstream media, I called them out over their unwarranted deference to Trump just because he was president. I’m pleased that MSM – not because of anything I wrote, of course – has gradually moved away from simply printing Trump’s lies. At first they called them “unverified” and then “false.” At this point, fact-checking Trump is useless. If he says anything truthful, it’s only by accident. Come on, MSM. Start calling them what they are – lies.
4. I pointed out early on that while most presidents early in their first term try to build consensus, Trump’s basic strategy was to whip up the anger of his base – by launching his re-election campaign tour immediately, and by calling all criticism “fake news.” I identified the growing cultural “reality gap” as likely to be the most serious obstacle to domestic tranquility this country has seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
The last issue I’ll highlight is a more a matter of opinion than something that can be proven right or wrong. But ever since Election Day, I’ve insisted that Trump’s Deplorables (or “the white working class,” or whatever you want to call the infamous Base) are not the “real America,” as so many media outlets portrayed them in election post-mortems. They’re real enough, but they’re no more real than Clinton voters in Manhattan, San Francisco, or Tucson.
And as a practical matter, even as mainstream media continues to imagine that Democratic success hinges on winning the votes of Trump’s Base, I’ve maintained that there is no point in trying to reason with them. Recognize our shared humanity, sure. Pray for them if you’re so inclined. But don’t expend time and energy trying to change their minds.
Andrew Sullivan, writing in New York magazine, recently offered a perfect description of the bond between Trump and his Base: “In the last few weeks, Trump’s outright lies seem to be more frequent and he repeats them ever more shamelessly. They are now pure expressions of power, open demonstrations that his followers will accept anything he says, obey anything he commands, abandon any belief that he opposes. This is not representative democracy; it’s submission to a king. It’s not just an attack on the bedrock American principle of self-government; it’s a determination to extinguish it.”
Strong stuff, but I can’t find anything to disagree with.
And above all, the rest of us need to understand that these Deplorables will show up at the polls this November, and every November. Jim Wright, in his Stonekettle Station blog, amplifies that point: “Your angry racist white uncle, the one who believes everything Alex Jones and Rush Limbaugh tell him. The Tea Party. The religious nuts. The NRA. They show up. Every. Single. Time.”
“The Republic doesn’t run on moonbeams and magic…. The work of maintaining the republic is tedious and boring, if you’re doing it right. Duty very often isn’t glamorous or popular or even particularly inspiring, but that is what holds civilization together. Sometimes, most times, it’s just about showing up and doing what has to be done to hold back the fall of night and for no other reason than because the alternative is disaster and ruin.”
“There are no shortcuts. If you want a better nation, you have to be better citizens.”
When I woke up on the morning after Trump's election, I knew I had to be a better citizen. These Facebook/blog posts don't amount to much, but they help keep me focused on citizenship. If they also help a few other folks, it's worth the effort.