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The Lost Cause of the Trumpocracy

Nov 12, 2020 Elizabeth Drew

Donald Trump's insistent denial of reality following his loss in the 2020 US presidential election threatens to do still more damage to American democracy, even though it comes as no surprise. Like the southerners who never could get over their loss in the American Civil War, Trump has nothing left but his own mythomania.

WASHINGTON, DC – Joe Biden’s clear defeat of President Donald Trump, announced on Saturday, November 7 after four days of counting, is – a week later – still not enough for Trump to affirm Biden’s victory. Biden’s win supposedly ended what had been called the most consequential US election of modern times, but for reasons of his own, Trump is still holding out.

Under the guise of insisting that he was the victim of voter fraud – he has been advertising for months that he’d make this argument if he lost – Trump is denying Biden, and the country, the chance to begin an orderly transition of power. That Biden is the most experienced person in modern history to enter the presidency will help, but he faces the toughest situation confronting a new president since Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression. Given the raging pandemic and economic collapse, Biden’s challenge may even be more difficult.

Most of Trump’s opponents recognize that the election didn’t fulfill their ardent desire for an overwhelming repudiation of a president they despise. They must also face the fact that Trump retains an exceptionally large following. Almost ten million more people voted for Trump this time around than in 2016. The Democrats fared much worse in the elections for the Senate and the House of Representatives than the polls had predicted (they were wrong again), with the Senate probably remaining in the hands of the Republican master strategist Mitch McConnell – unless the Democrats sweep two run-off elections to be held in Georgia in early January.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 24 in all 24 Comments on this article

jonathan Story Dec 28, 2020

What I take away from this election is that the Democrats are no longer democrat. They seek to "win" at any price and by any means. The multiple anomalies are there as evidence, let alone the long cycle of court cases which the Biden camp can look forward to.
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Neil MacLean Dec 27, 2020

Secrets for sale? It would seem prudent to plan for that (secretly) and do whatever can be legally done to protect against the consequences of it happening. That would be yet another great cost of the man's disastrous presidency.
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Sobo Banker Dec 27, 2020

Article denounces Trump for all his foibles, misdeeds actual or perceived. Yet, it does not answer why nearly half the electorate voted for him ? Why he got more votes than he got in 2016, despite the massive efforts made by media, democrats, civil society who did not like what was brought to fore by Trump ? Seems Trump did dig into a seam that Democrats had overlord earlier and have overlooked again.
If half the nation is solidly behind him, the underlying causes - Trumpism if you may - remains alive and kicking. Simply calling them basest of American instincts is not going to remove that.
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Per Kurowski Nov 20, 2020

Where would the democrats be without the anti-Trump vote?
To survive perhaps the Democratic Party, need to ask Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, AOC and all their think alike comrades, to set up separate quarters.
- P. Kamath Nov 23, 2020
  
  PER KUROWSKI: Without Obama, AOC, Bernie Sanders and Biden alike, and a free press, it would be a matter of short time, corruption, moral rot and disappearance of Republican Party Andries of authoritarianism and collapse of USA. Thank God such a disaster has been avoided!
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William Allan Nov 19, 2020

Elizabeth Drew argues that Donald Trump has a “genuine, if feral, political ability”, but much of that shallow capability has been built from his showbusiness persona and the collapse of principled standards in the GOP, the party of Abraham Lincoln (to whom Trump dared to compare himself). It’s certainly striking that this ambiguous combination has gained him a larger popular following than he gained in his 2016 election. Contrary to Ms Drew’s conclusion, however, it’s likely that the world will ‘see the last of Donald Trump,’ but perhaps not the last of his legacy of populist appeal or the GOP’s willingness to sacrifice principles for power.

The issue that simply must be faced is that the US has come, in Drew’s words “perilously close ……. to a breakdown of its constitutional system.” The founding fathers were by no means unanimous in how these powers should be developed. In particular, Jefferson, as a leader of the then Democratic-Republican party, was concerned about the extent pf powers granted to the Supreme Court over interpretation of the Constitution. Modern developments of constitutional theory, particularly originalist doctrine promoted by Antonin Scalia, and recent successful strategies by the GOP to appoint a majority of republican-nominated justices to the Supreme Court, tend to support Jefferson’s contention that its powers would grow beyond those intended by the constitution.

While American economic and military power has protected the world from Nazi fascism and Soviet totalitarian communism, its continuing power to do so has been near-incredibly dissipated, first by the over-reach of the Bush/Cheney administration attempting to reshape the Middle East, second by the GOP’s essentially racist reaction to the Obama administration (as Drew describes), but more recently and astonishingly by Trump’s interpretation of the limitless powers of the Presidency. Trump’s GOP-supported presidency is reminiscent of the behaviour of the 17th and 18th century kings of France. While he will not meet the fate of Louis XIV, he is unlikely to mount another run at the Presidency—and may, as Drew suggests, be subject to significant legal action when he eventually moves out of the oval office. Deep institutional reform has become vital. A Trumpless GOP would be wise to work with the Biden/Harris administration to restore America’s capacity for world leadership and to address its deep internal divisions. Stronger international cooperation, including with China, and strengthening international institutions are essential elements of the way forward.
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Adolphus Longestaffe Nov 16, 2020

"They must also face the fact that Trump retains an exceptionally large following. Almost ten million more people voted for Trump this time around than in 2016."

Trump's following and the number of people who voted for him are not quite the same thing. Some voted their pocketbooks as if Trump deserved credit for the continued improvement of the economy. Others voted against the Democrats amid the Red Scare fabricated by the Trump campaign with the clueless cooperation of some Democrats. No doubt others chose, like many voters of the past, to go with the incumbent.

We needn't assume that the 70,000,000+ Trump voters in the recent election have all enlisted in the Trump Army.
- Graham Blom Dec 27, 2020
  
  Trump’ favourability consistently polled around 40% with remarkably little deviation, even in the face of often dramatic events or presidential outbursts that, for any other candidate, would be terminal. Given a total vote of a little over 150 M and the motivation of Trump supporters one would be hard-pressed not to think that there are at least 60M Americans who remain devoted Trump supporters.
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Jay Kay Nov 16, 2020

This comment was removed by a moderator. Replies to this comment may also be deleted. Please note that we moderate comments to ensure the conversation remains topically relevant. We appreciate well-informed comments and welcome your criticism and insight. Please be civil and avoid name-calling and ad hominem remarks.
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Per Kurowski Nov 15, 2020

Just Trump?
The Democratic Party is in serious trouble. If you doubt it just ask yourself where it would be now without the anti-Trump vote?
In order to survive the democrats might need to ask Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, AOC and their think alike comrades, to set up separate quarters.
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Ian Maitland Nov 15, 2020

For all Trump's many faults (most of them fairly petty in the grand scheme of things), history will record that they paled before the appalling way in which his opponents reacted to his unexpected election in 2016.

His opponents let themselves become defined by their hatred for Trump. He completely owned them. It was not a pretty sight. With just a few deft jabs or sneers or taunts or fibs, or a sprinkling of grains of salt in their wounds, he would unfailingly send them off the deep end, into paroxysms of rage. They simply couldn't resist the bait. They reduced themselves to a mob making apocalyptic over-the-top charges about a breakdown of our constitutional system and a destruction of US democracy. No matter how badly Trump behaved, they were out to prove they could outmatch him. Indeed, they came to resemble him.

Now the Trump era is coming to a predictably messy close. But amazingly his opponents are so hooked on him that they won't let go of him. As Voltaire said of God, if he didn't exist, we would have to invent him. Trump's opponents are determined not to let him fade into history. So before your very eyes you see Elizabeth Drew re-inventing Trump: He still has a large following, he has a feral political talent, he will continue to wield government power until the inauguration next January 20, he remains the dominant force in the GOP, he may run again in 2024, he is concocting an incendiary mythology to keep him relevant in the years ahead. . . . In short, "The danger that Trump presents to the American republic, if not the world, won’t disappear after January 20."

Yeah, right. In his dreams!

This is pure separation anxiety. His opponents have let their hatred for Trump define who they are. Without that hatred, who will they be? So, as usual, Trump wins. His opponents need him so badly -- existentially -- that they will become his most sedulous mythmakers: That is the project that Drew has launched today.
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David Lentz Nov 15, 2020

Well historically Americans have had no time for Presidents who lost re-election. Most recent have been Jimmy Carter and George HW Bush. Americans love winners. And there will always be a new winner to love. Capitalist Realism says that people will move on to the next reality tv series so it will not be trump.
Trumpism failed. The grievances still remain. What if a new reality emerged where antifa and the far right coalesced? I watched a YouTube discussion between a Marxist antifa type and a far right fellow yesterday. They agreed on a lot of issues. Essentially they agreed that the problem is the elites and corruption, Jeffrey Epstein etc. Currently the media has been able to keep two warring camps neither of which has any power or real representation. Trump in office just did the oligarchs bidding as he has the 400 million in debt that was mentioned
It is fascinating
Walk Street Journal seems to have moved on from Trump. Let’s see if Hannity retires etc. Scenescape may be very different in 6 months with trump long forgotten, Hannity retired, Rush Limbaugh retired Steve Bannon in prison etc
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Etb Etb Nov 13, 2020

This comment was removed by a moderator. Replies to this comment may also be deleted. Please note that we moderate comments to ensure the conversation remains topically relevant. We appreciate well-informed comments and welcome your criticism and insight. Please be civil and avoid name-calling and ad hominem remarks.
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j. von Hettlingen Nov 13, 2020

Elizabeth Drew says, Trump will continue to pose a threat to the country after leaving office. Apart from commanding his base (he has won 70 million votes, nearly 10 million more than in 2016), which would allow him to dominate the Republican party and play the kingmaker, even if he decided not to stage a comeback and run again in 2024, he could also monetise the state secrets he learned during his tenure, which would have devastating impact on the country’s national security.
The author says many current and former intelligence officials fear that he could sell these secrets to foreign adversaries, if they dangle a carrot in front of him. Although Trump has paid little attention to intelligence briefings, he still has “information that would be of great interest to America’s adversaries.” Some of them might be “willing to help bail him out from the deep financial hole he’s in (he must soon begin repaying $400 million in personally guaranteed loans).”
All presidents leave office with valuable national secrets in their heads. They include the procedures for launching nuclear weapons, intelligence-gathering capabilities and process - including assets deep inside foreign governments - and the development of new and advanced weapon systems, special military capabilities, technical features of Air Force One, details about cyberweapons, the kinds of satellites the US uses etc. All of this information is of value to adversaries.
Trump has in the past selectively blurted out highly classified information to attack his adversaries, gain political advantage and impress or intimidate foreign governments, in some cases jeopardising US intelligence capabilities. In a Oval Office meeting in 2017, Trump told Russia’s foreign minister and ambassador to the US about highly classified information received from an ally about Islamic State threats to aviation. In August 2019, he tweeted a detailed aerial image of an Iranian launchpad, which was a highly guarded piece of intelligence.
As mean-spirited and vindictive as Trump is, he will see no point in keeping quiet as a private citizen. Apart from financial woes, he is also angry at the government, which he sees as a “deep state,” accusing the intelligence community of casting doubt about the legitimacy of his 2016 win, by claiming he would not have won without Russian meddling. As he called Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation a “hoax,” he now insists on declassifying information about the probe to support his view, which his advisers say would compromise sensitive collection methods and anger key allies.
Given Trump’s history of disclosures, he poses a unique security dilemma for the Biden administration. Trump certainly checks the boxes of a classic counterintelligence risk. Anyone who is disgruntled, dissatisfied or aggrieved is a risk of disclosing classified information, whether as a current or former officeholder, according to David Priess, a former CIA officer and author of “The President’s Book of Secrets,” a history of the top-secret intelligence briefings that presidents and their staff members receive while in office.
Former presidents do not sign nondisclosure agreements when they leave office. They have a right to access information from their administration, including classified records. They are expected to safeguard information, as they did while in office. Yet outside the confines of the Presidential Records Act, there is no boundary except the president’s behaviour. Biden could refuse to give Trump any intelligence briefings, which ex-presidents have received before meeting with foreign leaders or embarking on diplomatic missions at the current president’s request. But Biden will not send him anywhere as an emissary.
Although Trump’s daughter, his son-in-law and cronies have security clearances and access to valuable intelligence. Trump’s significant debt is of grave concern to intelligence officials. Many of the individuals who had committed espionage are people who are financially vulnerable. They do not rule out that he might trade secrets, perhaps in exchange for favours, to ingratiate himself with prospective clients in foreign countries or to get back at his perceived enemies. When he leaves office, he will be facing a pile of lawsuits and a crushing amount of debt.
Some find solace in the Espionage Act, which has been successfully used to convict current and former government officials who disclose information that damages US national security. It has never been used against a former president. But as of Jan. 20, 2021, Trump becomes a private citizen, and the immunity he enjoys from criminal prosecution no longer affords him. The problem is that prosecuting a former president for serious crimes would be political dynamite for the Biden administration.
The right-wing media and Trump’s supporters will cry foul at charges they see as fabricated, accusing the “deep state” led by the Democrats of launching another witch-hunt against their beloved president. This narrative would dominate the media for months, drowning out Biden’s tough battle for his policy agenda in Congress, where Republicans would once again rush to Trump’s defence.
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P. Kamath Nov 12, 2020

It is always a pleasure to read Ms Drew’s observations about political world in Washington and in the country. POTUS Trump has done in the past four years unimaginable damage to democracy in America and traditions. It seems the days of US leadership to tell rest of the world to follow US is , it seems, over. What is mind boggling is to see that fifty percent of legislators in the Congress and the Senate are prepared follow this man so blindly to let moral rot of lying, corruption, or racism etc. thrive. It may not be impossible to recover , but would take a long time.
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alex Finch Nov 12, 2020

„Trump‘s disastrous mishandling of the pandemic“......?
Socialists across Europe spent all Summer gleefully leveling exactly that same accusation against Trump. Now Europe is experiencing exponential outbreaks not even seen in America. Elizabeth Drew, another academic with probably NO experience in running a business, effectively telling the 72 Million people who voted for Trump, they’re just red-necks. NO, they are middle class and small business people, the ones lazy socialists tax out of existence. Only when Democrats get rid of all the crazy lazy radical Socialists in their Party, Republicans might eventually leave Trump behind.
- Jonathan Engel Nov 12, 2020
  
  I read this the same way. As an "expert" sent out by the EU Commission into the collapsed Soviet Union to seek to explain and implement market economy reforms, I have seen the results of the Green New Deal up real close, the disaster of the environment, the people whose whole lives were incentivised to hide their opinions, the poverty, the sadness of life and the huge struggle of these countries, and of their well intentioned if autocratic governments to take on a sane relationship with reality.
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Jonathan Engel Nov 12, 2020

This comment was removed by a moderator. Replies to this comment may also be deleted. Please note that we moderate comments to ensure the conversation remains topically relevant. We appreciate well-informed comments and welcome your criticism and insight. Please be civil and avoid name-calling and ad hominem remarks.
- Mirek Fatyga Nov 12, 2020
  
  https://www.businessinsider.com/national-debt-deficit-trump-how-it-compares-obama-bush-clinton-2019-11
  
  or this.
  
  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-45827430
  
  Trump, when it comes to the economy, acted like a typical Republican president when he had a chance to legislate unimpeded:
  
  1. cut taxes for the donors
  2. increase defense spending
  3. run up the debt
  4. deregulate finance into the next financial bubble
  5. start a new war
  
  He was interrupted in the midstream by the pandemic, hence the cycle did not complete. It would have left a broken economy to the successor all over again.
  
  When emotions subside, and he is judged by history, he will get credit for one thing only. While he brought the US to the brink of a new war (with Iran) twice, he shrank from that war in the end.
  
  He undermined the US democracy by normalizing the culture of unrestrained lying for political gain, heretofore still confined to the right wing underbelly. It is quite possible that the US will never really recover from this experience, just like Argentina never really recovered from Peron. And incidentally, unlike Trump, Peron actually did try to do something for the workers, but this is a different story.
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- Lester Soss Nov 12, 2020
  
  Trump's most significant claim, and perhaps the most revealing of who and what he is, was made during the campaign. As he said at his rallies (to paraphrase), "Covid, covid, covid, it's a hoax! Just watch after November 4th, the fake media will suddenly realize that there are no cases!"
  
  The belief that the working class will stick with this clown is nonsense. In order for that to occur, he and his allies would have to deliver something more tangible to them than just rantings about the "elite". The economics just isn't there for that.
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- Mirek Fatyga Nov 12, 2020
  
  https://www.thebalance.com/job-creation-by-president-by-number-and-percent-3863218
  
  just a reality check on your fantasies about job creation.
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David Garland Nov 12, 2020

Frankly, I think Trump Fans have much more in common with our mid-1800s ancestors who were against the abolition of slavery, than most would admit.
- P. Kamath Nov 12, 2020
  
  “A basket of miserables”. Perhaps 🤔
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Edwin Hoffman Nov 12, 2020

Biden is not fit for office, and his running mate was the first to drop out of the presidential race, for good reason. Many Americans suspect Biden is a sacrifice, where Trump will retain power to help to tarnish conservatism, and thus extinguish resistance to globalism.

https://alt-market.us/get-ready-for-chaos-regardless-of-who-ends-up-in-the-white-house/

If the globalist wanted a reversion this cycle, one more aligned with their vision, the selection would have been more on the level of a Gore-Warren ticket.
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Edwin Hoffman Nov 12, 2020

Here’s a more candid article that expands on the situation beyond the over simplistic fixation on Trump.

https://alt-market.us/get-ready-for-chaos-regardless-of-who-ends-up-in-the-white-house/
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https://prosyn.org/K1UwW7s

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