People often say our country is split between a reality-based population and everyone else, but both sides are living in fantasy worlds. One way to explore this is the focus groups that look at how Republican voters are feeling about Donald Trump. Another way is to talk to reality-based Republican strategists about the effect of the January 6 hearings. There’s plenty of both in this Washington Post article by Isaac Stanley-Becker and Josh Dawsey.
If there’s a consensus, it’s basically that Trump is still immensely popular with the Republican base but there’s growing doubt that he’s electable. Voters are still unlikely to criticize the disgraced ex-president, and they generally argue that his policies were top notch. But, in a variety of ways they are willing to express some skepticism about his viability as a candidate or even to say it’s time to move on to someone else. Insofar as news from the January 6 hearings has penetrated the right-wing media bubble, it has mainly supported the impression that Trump has some pretty strong electoral weaknesses.
“You can see the effect of the hearings in the percentage of Republicans who want him to run again,” said Whit Ayres, a longtime Republican pollster. “A great many Republicans are protective of him and defensive of their support for him but increasingly of the view that he carries way too much baggage to be the nominee in 2024.”
Not everyone agrees, of course.
Trump has rarely faced political costs when backed against a wall, said Brian Ballard, a lobbyist and top Trump fundraiser who also chaired Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s inauguration in 2019.
“I kind of agree with President Trump’s pronouncement when he was running for president the first time, when he said he could stand on Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and not lose support,” Ballard said. “I don’t see anything in the coverage that would significantly alter his support in the party.”
The person who comes closest to my personal take (or, at least, hope) is Maryland Governor Larry Hogan:
Among the subset of Republicans following the proceedings, Hogan said in an interview on the sidelines of the summit, “it is having an impact because they’re hearing from people in the White House and members of the administration and supporters who are giving facts that are eye-opening.”
But most Republicans, he noted, “are not watching and not paying attention, and it’s not going to impact them.”…
…Hogan said he believes much of the ultimate impact from the hearings will depend on “what happens with potential actions by the Justice Department.”
In our present news cycle, much is being made of the fact that the New York Post and Wall Street Journal, both owned by Rupert Murdoch, have editorialized against Trump in light of his inaction during the January 6 assault on Congress and threats against former Vice-President Mike Pence. But unless that sentiment bleeds over to Murdoch’s Fox News programming, the impact is likely to be quite limited. What nearly everyone will notice is if Trump is arrested.
I think most analysts fail to see that the heart of Trump’s appeal has always been his ability to break the rules and get away with it. So many people wish they could do the same in their personal and professional lives, and they get vicarious thrill out of watching Trump act with impunity. Yes, many of his supporters would race to his defense if he were put on trial, but the magic would be gone for many others.
And that’s the way to defuse Trumpism. It’s not just the man himself, but his malignant influence that needs to go. The addiction to transgression is now widespread on the right, and it covers everything from the joy of being unapologetically racist or misogynistic or anti-LGBT, to the pursuit of fraudulent grift. Trump is the pied piper of crooks and natural born assholes, and he will continue to lead people astray until his aura of invulnerability is destroyed.
Anyone who believes Trump’s influence will wane sufficiently to snuff out his chances of a comeback based on the dissemination of truthful information about his record is living in a fantasy world. And anyone who thinks Trumpism will disappear if Trump doesn’t run again is also deluded. As things stand, the GOP base wants Trumpism, and their only consideration is whether Trump is still the best man to deliver it.
What needs to change is the desire for transgression. And the only way that changes is if transgression is punished in the most highly visible way possible. That’s why I agree with Gov. Hogan that “the ultimate impact from the hearings will depend on ‘what happens with potential actions by the Justice Department.'”
Absolutely. If there are no consequences for bad behavior, then bad behavior will continue. The same is true for bad behavior’s subsets of illegal behavior and unconstitutional behavior.
The primary value of the House Select Committee’s hearings (imho) has been to raise the cost of bad behavior for Trump and his associates. That’s why it’s good to see Bannon convicted, and Cipollone agree to testify, and Ornato and Engel having to lawyer up.
It’s an addiction to defiance. ‘They’ don’t like the rules ‘we’ have imposed, particularly on speech. For the Left the core paradigm is the classroom. We position ourselves as teachers – lecturing, correcting, condescending – and that rankles. Yes, of course we are usually correct, but that, too, is an academic framing. We are the smart kids who like what they teacher is saying, they are the slow kids who sit in the back of the room muttering under their breath.
That sounds fine to most Dems, but here’s the thing: they are winning and we are losing. We’ve lost on abortion, we are losing on trans rights, we have utterly failed on police reform, and we may well lose gay marriage and contraception, FFS. My suggestion? How about we try less to be correct and try harder to be effective.
Trumpism is a misnomer. It’s an euphemism for fascism. And it isn’t even Trump’s “fault”. It’s been building for 30+ years now. Trump just said the formerly quiet parts with a bullhorn and then smiled. And that smile has made it “legit” for right-wing authoritarians. Trump can disappear tomorrow but others will take over.
That’s not getting bottled back up.
Fascists don’t get the news that their ideology is complete dogshit and stop being fascist to conform to the world. They use every ounce of their power to make the world conform to their completely dogshit ideology.
It won’t stop until it is physically stopped.