This is an interesting read, and I recommend it... but with a grain of salt. This is one of those articles that clearly articulates all of the worst case scenarios... almost to the point that it had a ring of familiarity to the fear mongering stuff I've come to expect from Fox News and other conservative rags. I think it's TOTALLY the right choice to energize your base, and to inspire people to action... but this piece was just downright terrifying. I'm not clarvoyant enough to see what is going to happen, but holy crap this was stark. And bonus points for making me think about three words that aren't in my every day vocabulary: hove, pettifoggery, and simulacrum.
I read three quarters of it and had an earnest sit-down with my wife about what Rubicon we'd have to cross before we fled to Canada. I did this fully knowing that it's a fear-mongering Atlantic article. I completely gave in to my Gell-Mann amnesia. She pointed out that it was ridiculous. Trump has been largely disastrous down-ticket. The Republicans are already dealing with legitimacy issues. She's right - all this hypothetical Trump ram-rodding is of zero benefit to everyone else. Which is not to say he won't do it. But Trump's secret stormtrooper force is a hundred border patrol guys in rented minivans. My wife then pointed out that fuckin' hell, married white people in Seattle have the least to worry about in a Trump dictatorship and that really, we owe it to all of our minority employees to fuckin' keep it together and help out everyone else. Her instincts are better than mine. I rationalized that I speak redneck, know how to shoot, can identify tires by their tread and can trace my lineage back to the Old 300 on one side and the DAR on the other (although the jury's still out on that one). I may have a "make racists afraid again" patch on my backpack but I look a lot more Proud Boy than Antifa. And frankly, I have much stronger ties to the Republicans than I do the Democrats around here. The problem with articles like this one is they are much better at making everybody panic than they are at making everybody act. It gave me a sense of hopelessness that I haven't felt in years.
The thing the GOP seem to be burying their heads in the ground about is that the will of the people can only be ignored for so long. And the people who they have to ignore are suddenly the rich people, who will refuse to be ignored, as opposed to the democrats' historically poor constituency. The collapse of GOP support in the suburbs in the mid-term elections was a striking feature of the new political alignment in America. We may have a perfect storm this year to keep Trump in office due to the voting problems that covid is inevitably going to cause, but winning might be the worst thing that the GOP could hope for right now. It will get ugly for them. I think that mk referred to them the other day as the dog that caught the car. Maybe that was you. Either way it was apt.
A friend of mine called Trump the dog that caught the car the Saturday after the election. That assessment presumed that he would face repercussions. He hasn't - not yet. The real problem with electing a craven opportunist is that it will drive out everyone principled and leave governance to craven opportunists. I'm no Paul Ryan fan but I'll give him this - he bailed when it became clear that his agenda did not align with Trump's. Unfortunately our constitution was written for craven opportunists - electoral college, 2/5ths human black people, the Senate - and the ones that are left standing will fly the plane into the ground before they relinquish the yoke because they're - say it with me - craven opportunists. The thing that saves us is when the calculus for craven opportunists says "don't go Trump."
Yes, and I guess I'm still optimistic that we will get to that point before it's too late. Other times I feel like Asimov hit the nail on the head, and we're the Foundation sinking into decadence and nepotism that is beyond repair.The thing that saves us is when the calculus for craven opportunists says "don't go Trump."
Asimov cribbed it from Toynbee, who did the World History Magnum Opus before the Durants but after JG Frazer. "Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder." He wrote 12 volumes to prove his point. The quote is at the beginning of Volume 4, which I have around here somewhere, but haven't quite been able to stomach. Of course, the thought wasn't original to him, either, nor Thomas Cole, Nor Gibbon.
Thanks for the reminder, Steve. I keep reading these articles about Trump refusing to step down even in the face of a dramatic defeat, and it gives me anxiety of a sort I've never felt from electoral politics. I need a reminder that the internet exists as it does solely to increase reader "engagement", and articles such as this are a good way of doing that. My brother spends too much time on Twitter, and he swears he's moving to Japan should Trump be reelected. The internet, present website excluded, has turned into such a horrible place that it causes friends and family to turn on one another (literally, my mom and her brother, who were super close, didn't speak for a year after Trump was elected because of a Facebook fight). Fear mongering == boku bucks on the internet. That's unfortunately a lot easier to see when the other guys are doing it.