The GOP Dream Scenario: A Trump Defeat
Why Trump losing would be the best outcome for the Right
Politics is part charisma, part manipulation, part secret deals… but mostly compromise. At least that’s how open and functional societies function.
The Left has veered away from the mainstream, and conservatives watch and crow with delight. Defunding the police? Sex and gender education which is situated contrary to ideas of traditional sex roles in elementary schools? Preferential hiring of women and black people and sexual minorities at the expense of standards and expertise? Ridiculous. Not only are these proposals unpopular, they are unpopular in every major demographic except for college-educated, urban white people. The modern dream of the Left-a country remade, institutions ‘dismantled’, administrators checking personal expression and enforcing equity at every opportunity-is about as appealing to most Americans as a retirement in North Korea.
The Republicans saw the opportunity and moved in. Leaving aside issues like health policy and abortion access, they focused on real, daily issues that matter to most Americans and they hammered the solutions that are available for all to see: with immigration they increased border security and promised a regime of imprisonment, fines, and enforcement against illegals (gaining support in the black commuity), while seeking to expedite the introduction of the doctors and software developers and nuclear engineers who long to move here; with police they promised to increase budgets to allow for better hiring and training and community outreach; with tax policy they promised to include transfer payments and government benefits in calculations of personal income, reducing the disincentives to work and earn money and start businesses. Immigration, law and order, taxation and business law… the iron triangle of Republican preference among voters. They avoided crazy-sounding and unappealing rants about stolen elections and abortion and healthcare.
At least that’s what they should have done. If they had pursued the issues of concern they would now have a Reaganesque hold on American power. They would have control of both houses of Congress, the Supreme Court… and in less than a year the presidency. The shrill and pampered Left could write all the articles about the dangers of white supremacy and high school transphobia they wanted. Few would care, as they do now. The difference is: right now that Left has a great deal of influence on a major political contender, who is only competitive because of the shocking and ridiculous abdication of the Republican party.
I’m not one of those people who sees bigotry at the heart of Republicans’ flaws. Republicans as a group are not more bigoted than Democrats in my experience, and the only racialist or sexually oppressive or pro-segregation ideologies with any energy are all now on the Left. There’s a different issue: Republicans have a stupidity problem. I’m not talking about partisan strategy or the values of the Right. I mean that there are far too many dumb (uninformed, politically irresponsible…) people in the Republican party, and they are empowered in a way and to a degree that is peculiar in modern life.
Before I continue I will make some broad, but broadly true, generalizations about the two-party system in the U.S. Each party has its elites and its ‘hoi polloi’ (an old Greek term for everyday people, without especial privilege). The Democrats now control universities, corporate boardrooms, federal agencies, Hollywood, much of the corporate media, and the nonprofit sector. Never has so much privilege been amassed in a single political party as the modern Democrat party now has. Poor white people and working class people of all kinds generally tend to vote against the Democrats, largely for that reason. The issues which energize the Democrat party are all issues proclaimed and defined by a small group of wealthy and well-educated urbanites. The hoi polloi of the Democrat party are the working class black and Hispanic voters, who are completely taken for granted and who have almost no influence on national party politics. The Democrats have an elitism problem (which is ironic when you consider their narrative). Many white Democrats believe the police should be defunded for the good of black communities… while >85% of black Americans want more and better police. This divide persists because, for all their empty pontification about privilege and marginalization, the Democrat elites don’t know any of their working class fellow partisans. They don’t live in their neighborhoods, they don’t attend their schools, and they don’t work at their jobs (except for those distant and unknown figures cleaning the hallways or serving food). They are effectively segregated, and the white Democrats want it this way. If they didn’t they could surrender some of their privilege (for there’s few privileges as luxurious as living in safe, green, wealthy neighborhoods) and move into the areas that house their fellow working class voters. I’ve literally never spoken to one white Democrat who has done this. Privilege for them is an abstract criticism of American society. They never consider that their homes and jobs and educations are all expansive privileges and so-according to their values-should be surrendered. It’s the height of hypocrisy, and people are beginning to notice.
The Republicans have a different, opposite problem. While they mostly lack Fortune 500 companies or wealthy private universities as part of their party intelligentsia there are many, many brilliant and successful Republicans. Many doctors, lawyers, business owners, intellectuals, and even (some) celebrities are Republicans… but their party remains firmly rooted in the ground and receptive to the housewives and truckers and warehouse workers which animate their side of the aisle. Therein lies the problem.
Trump managed to impassion, and redefine… and weaken the Republican party. He has been at the center of Republican politics for nearly 9 years now, and he has made loyalty to him a litmus test for success, even in many local races. The base has fractured (as all groups have, under the weight of social media algorithms and the alienation of modern American life) and just as the Left now often believes that biological sex is nothing but a state of mind, or that 10,000 unarmed black men are murdered by police every year, the Right is now vaccine skeptical (beyond the specific merits and risks of the COVID ‘vaccines’, unfortunately) and regard elections and the American political system as a whole as a rigged game. I make no comment as to the truth of these claims (for I am deeply skeptical but also less certain of the information I absorb from the media than I’ve ever been). I merely observe that American society needs institutions to function: scientific, cultural, political. Basing your worldview around a defenestration of our current crop of elites only takes you so far. We need a constructive vision of how American society can be rejuvenated and a path to get there. The answers aren’t esoetric and popular instincts are broadly correct, I think… but we need a group of educated and powerful people to effect them. Trump is more isolated than he has ever been. He has failed to deliver this vision of constructive rebirth, partly because-for all his vocal cynicism-he doesn’t have a deep understanding of the system or the policy-making apparatus. There’s also a personality issue here: Trump only cares for his own success. He has never groomed and will never groom his successors because he cannot conceptualize of anyone succeeding him (a pretty large oversight for a man well into his 80’s). He has wasted untold hours and millions of dollars re-litigating an election which was effectively decided-for better or for worse-3 years ago. These flaws have defined Trump’s recent political career because Trump is a selfish and erratic man. He sabotaged EVERY cabinet member who thought independently or gained popularity. He’s not even competent enough to destroy the current power structure (obviously! Even with his framing it was able to steal an election from him with barely a whisper after FOUR YEARS of his national leadership). Building a new one in its place would require ten times the amount of effort and patience.
I can’t imagine myself voting for Joe Biden. I’m not convinced that he’s still technically alive and I’m certain that he is well into dementia, or some other grave neurological malady. Kamala Harris is a baffling sociopath, a cloying ambition-hungry hypocrite, the kind that we see too often in the upper echelons of American life these days. What I do know is that both major political parties have been so deformed by the pressures of the age (in different directions) that they abandoned the vigorous and moderate middle of the country. In American politics today’s monumental failure always sows the seeds for tomorrow’s hegemony. The Republican technocrat consensus was dominant… until the Great Depression discredited Coolidge and Hoover and opened space for FDR’s New Deal, and +12 years of Democrat dominance. The Nixon administration mired the Republicans in doubt and self-loathing…, until Reagan remade the party’s image. The disastrous Carter 1970’s ultimately remade the Democrat Party around Clinton’s triangulation strategy. The first party to face an existential failure and reconstitute itself may well enjoy a solid decade (or more) of political consensus, with the wiggle room to actually make policy and change this country. If Trump loses that could well be the Republican Party. This is not a pro- or anti-candidate essay. This is my opinion: Trump losing would be the best thing that’s happened to Republicans in 20 years.
