Thinking about things earlier, seeing one group of pro-Trump supporters demanding counting be stopped in Michigan and another demanding it carry on in Arizona. I simply couldn't imagine either of the Bush's, Reagan or even the notoriously paranoid Nixon encouraging their supporters to carry on like this. It's little short of outright incitement in my opinion.
It also perfectly illustrates what I said yesterday about being able to subvert or override the supposed checks and balances that the Constitution is supposed to provide.
I do wonder how many of the Republican voters are Trump fans rather than true Republicans. If the GOP had someone similar to Biden (somewhat bland career politician) running against Biden it'd be interesting to see what the voting split in the various demographics would look like as I reckon the appeal of Trump may be a significant issue.
I was also reading something about how the various demographics prefer information. College-educated people tend to prefer objective arguments, with nuanced views, which is what you'd expect with them having been through college. Whereas the blue-collar, less-educated demographic like to here more extreme, zero-sum conflict arguments. These people have always existed but I suspect been in the margins.
Trump emboldened and unleashed this group and made them mainstream, in the same way that someone like Farage did for the little-Englander, or Corbyn did for the anti-semites in the Labour Party. The question is will the GOP carry on with Trumpism without Trump or will it repudiate it and go back to being a standard political party?
These topics have been raised and discussed extensively over the past few years in the Trump thread, with many of us calling out the ferocious undermining of American political institutions and norms, whilst also warning of the likely subversion strategy for this election. To date, his regime has undertaken nearly everything many of us predicted it would. Very little it has done (and likely will do over the coming weeks) comes as a surprise to anyone that has been paying attention throughout Trump’s term.
As far as how the Republican Party will go on after this, that in part depends on the Trump camp’s next moves — there will be ramifications if they take attempts to subvert the election even further. That is a distinct possibility, as down to a man nearly all will be desperate to remain in power to avoid prosecution and to continue grifting. In Trump’s case, his businesses will likely collapse when he leaves office and he is already under a mountain of litigation without the federal indictments that are impossible to levy while he is President. And that is not even considering new charges that will likely be brought against him arising from investigations that can’t even begin in earnest until he is ousted. He is desperate to remain in office, generally shielded from those dire consequences. Even if he does finally concede defeat peaceably, he won’t just vanish afterward. He will be prominently lingering, with rapid cognitive decline and manic desperation for attention, holding national secrets, as one of the highest security risks ever seen in modern American history.
And since the Republican Party has largely been consumed by Trumpers — people that were apolitical or nominally Republican until Trump came along and gave them a deified vessel for their until then increasingly maligned beliefs and aspirations — his political power in the party does not evaporate, either. In many ways it has become a cult of personality not that dissimilar to dictatorships seen throughout history (especially more recently). Except, perhaps different in that he has the zealous backing of a worldwide conspiracy cult in QAnon, further strengthening his reach and influence even out of office. There have been quite a few surveys over the last year or so that have shown that a large portion of those self-identifying as Republican count loyalty to Trump as a chief tenet of their political identity. To many of his followers he is their political identity. A large portion of the Republican membership will be solely loyal to Trump, not the party, and especially not the platform. Though, the platform itself has quite obviously been hijacked, as well. Trump will be an incredibly influential agitator, with the means to insight literal insurrection, even if he goes to prison (which most of us hope will happen). His (crime) family is also another variable in the equation. Their fortunes are largely tied to his, meaning they will probably stick together, barring any betrayals to save themselves arising from the aforementioned tonnage of litigation they are and will be facing. And they will act “on his behalf”, whether or not he is actually giving them instructions, as they will need to ride his coattails as far as they go.
There is also the matter of the actions the Trump regime take as a lame duck admin — any chaos over the next few months will have implications for the future of the party (not to mention America and the world, of course).
I cannot see any scenario where the Republican Party can simply disentangle from Trump and revert to a standard political party. There were opportunities early on, when the tumor was fairly small and isolated, to cleave the cancer and potentially save the body. But it has metastasised now, with malignant tentacles in nearly every fold and crevice. Removing the growth would likely kill the body.
I can only see a splintering to form a new political party, with many of the previous conservative beliefs (and a few new ones) constituting the core of the new platform.
At any rate, as things stand, we’ll soon find out how it will go on.
