Back in 2017, the establishment was able to convince themselves President Trump was a one-of-a-kind defect in American politics that they could correct somehow, but that illusion will be shattered should he win again.
If former President Donald Trump prevails next week, his victory will result in a political contradiction of the highest possible order. In one sense, it will be seen, accurately, as a complete and total repudiation of an establishment currently suffering from the most acute form of projection and collective hatred of a major party political figure in human history. These are the so-called champions of democracy that sought to remove a presidential candidate from the ballot, jail him to prevent him from running entirely, and in some cases, expressed frustration that he wasn’t killed by an assassin’s bullet, not once but twice. They have also, entirely on their own, without following an established procedure or legal framework, negated the votes of some fourteen million to anoint a new presidential candidate after the other party’s convention, an unprecedented occurrence throughout all of American politics. Thus, they regularly claim their opponent is an authoritarian fascist, while actively pursuing authoritarian policies of their own up to and including attempting to silence anyone who disagrees with them, complete with calls to jail their political opponents. During the pandemic, they arbitrarily shutdown businesses, insisted people remain locked in their homes, enforced distancing and mask mandates, and ultimately demanded that everyone receive an unproven vaccine in an unprecedented exercise of power. Otherwise, they have repeatedly insisted on bypassing the Constitutional order on everything from landlord rights to student debt to immigration, actively proposing socialist style price controls and further erosion of minority rights such as eliminating the filibuster and packing the courts. The only constant, what we might say is their sole guiding principle, is whatever change they call for, they believe will increase their power at any given moment. Simultaneously, they position themselves as the self-appointed defenders of the human race against misinformation, what they frame as an existential threat to the democracy they cherish, though they frequently spread more misinformation than anyone else. The extent of this misinformation runs from the political sphere to the medical, from the historical realm to the day to day news, from the legal to the practical, failing to hold themselves accountable to their own standards on anything and everything. Last, but certainly not least, they promised a return to normalcy and delivered the exact opposite. Less than four years after President Donald Trump left office, even the mainstream media has described the world as “on fire.” The American people, meanwhile, have been wracked by massive inflation the experts insisted was transitory or entirely non-existent, a moribund economy by historical standards they claim is somehow so stellar we don’t even know it, unchecked illegal immigration they tell us should have no impact on our opinion on anything, and increases in violent crime that have been covered up and lied about.
Culturally, we have witnessed the rapid embrace of the belief that a man can magically transform into an actual woman to the point where it’s assumed even our spouses shouldn’t question this reality, based on no evidence any such thing is possible or ever has been. Distinct from the bedrock American belief that everyone has the right to make choices about how they present themselves to the world and those choices should be treated with dignity and respect, they bizarrely insist that a transgender woman, that is a biological man, who seeks a non-trans biological woman is in fact a lesbian, and though such a couple would be engaging in heterosexual sex, biological women who prefer women with the usual body parts are bigoted. Further, they insist that transgender women can and should compete fairly in biological women’s supports, believing rather obtusely that there is no physical difference between the sexes, despite the obvious outcome of biologically women ending up on the losing end of these encounters more often than not. The flourishing of the transgender movement has also been accompanied by a radical increase in a rabid anti-Americanism that insists the entire country remains systemically racist and therefore irredeemable. This madness extends to the meaningful when President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris attempted to allocate relief funds based on one’s perceived disadvantaged racial status, to the meaningless when professors attempt to link William Shakespeare, an author dead for over four hundred years, with white nationalism and January 6. It has infected businesses, colleges, public schools, and the government, forming the foundation of many hiring and promotional practices, and subjecting white workers and students to shaming, guilt, and ridiculing for things that happened decades or even centuries before they were born, that most have never done and have no plan to do. It is accompanied by the belief that one can say anything they like about white people, up to and including describing the largest racial cohort in the country as nothing more than a group of outright psychopaths. More recently, we’ve seen this anti-Americanism metastasize into an even more virulent antisemitism, wherein progressives feel comfortable calling for the outright eradication of the world’s only Jewish state and a worldwide jihad in public. Regardless of these insanities, failures, and many other failings, the establishment in question still believes it has a practically divine right to rule over the great unwashed masses and accepts no dissent, punishing their enemies by whatever means necessary.
A vote for President Trump is clearly and definitively a vote against all of this, a means to stand up to those who would rule over our lives without our consent, trampling our rights and freedoms for their benefit, as they see fit. In that, it is undoubtedly and entirely a good thing, a powerful message that freedom and free thinking still prevails in America and the American people will not be told what to do or what to believe by anyone for any reason, but in another sense, it’s also almost entirely meaningless, the beginning of the fight rather than the end. There is no future with a Trump victory wherein the establishment questioning the error of their ways and reconsiders its actions. The real card carrying experts will not wake up the following morning, or whenever the results are known, accept President Trump as the legitimate winner and allow him to implement his agenda. Instead, the resistance, which unfortunately includes large swaths of the government, will continue as if nothing had happened, however large his margin. Immediately, they will abandon every position they have right now on the sanctity of our elections, and attempt to prevent the former President from taking office in the first place, embracing the very techniques they claim he should be jailed for. Assuming they fail in that endeavor, they will continue to embrace a shadow government that refuses to recognize President Trump as the Chief Executive until the day he leaves office. This will include both the immediate resumption of anonymous, mainly false leaks about everything and anything, and even worse, a refusal to follow lawful executive orders and other directives clearly within a President’s purview. Wherever possible, they will deny, delay, obfuscate, and outright lie in service of this resistance, doing whatever possible however undemocratic and unethical. To an extent never seen in the history of American politics, those who claim to be championing democracy right now, will immediately reverse their position, and insist that a democratically elected President must be stopped at all costs, up to and including behavior precious generations would have perceived as treasonous. There will be nothing considered out of bounds, and no calls for legal action against anyone for anything, from potential rioting in the streets to whatever subversion of democracy might happen in the government. Controlling and restraining President Trump will be the only thing that matters, wherever the course, and it is foolish to think they will not succeed in many of these efforts, preventing him from implementing his agenda wherever possible. This will also be accompanied by the immediate abandonment of any currently proposed changes to the prevailing Constitutional order and democratic norms like eliminating the filibuster or packing the courts. These two in particular will be elevated to the most important principles in our democracy, and any and all statements up until November 5 will be completely forgotten in favor of a blanket resistance. The resistance will be all that matters and it will be cheered on at every turn. Trump supporters should brace themselves accordingly, and prepare to be shocked by the brazenness with which this is carried out.
I understand this might sound overly pessimistic, but the reality seems inescapable, to me at least: The resistance to a second Trump term will be far, far worse than the first and it will greatly limit his ability to govern effectively. Back in 2017, what seems several lifetimes ago, the establishment was able to convince themselves he was a one-of-a-kind defect in American politics that they could correct somehow, a black swan event with limited bearing on the future, one that could be dealt with entirely in the present. They believed that everything would revert back to normal at some point and the Trump-era could be entirely forgotten. While they failed to make this happen during his time in office, including two impeachments and countless, frivolous claims he was an illegitimate President, such as the ridiculous notion that he was violating the little-known emoluments clause of the Constitution, long-term success was certain after President Joe Biden swore the oath in January 2021. Surely, the entire country can move on now. It didn’t matter that this victory was achieved only through changes to the conduct of elections so dramatic they hadn’t been seen in a hundred years and that everyone knew President Trump would have prevailed had the election been held under the same rules as 2016. Nothing mattered, save that he was gone and, in their view at least, the chances that an ex-President, so disgraced in their eyes, could possibly rise again were non-existent. They were, of course, happy to declare his MAGA movement dead along with him. From there, they proceeded to behave as if the previous four years never happened and those he gave a voice to didn’t matter, growing government and the reach of the expert class regardless of the results, believing President Trump was vanquished once and for all. The past twelve months, however, have proven them spectacularly wrong in this assessment, making it clear to everyone that Trumpism is here to stay with or without him. Therefore, a second Trump victory will need to be resisted even more than the first because his legacy is now an existential threat for decades to come. Unfortunately, the only awareness they will glean from this is the need to resist even more fiercely and hysterically. The only outcome will be more polarization and discord, a pitched battle over the large, the small, and everything unimaginable in between, one where his supporters are targeted even more openly and dramatically than the first time around. To be clear, this doesn’t imply there will be no measurable difference between a Trump and Harris Administration. The powers of the presidency are vast and in at least some cases, irresistible. A President Trump, in my opinion at least, will be far superior to a President Harris, and will be able to make both economic and international gains despite the blowback, perhaps even because of it in some cases. If anything, the blowback itself is likely to prompt a backlash of its own, as his supporters wake up to the reality that the war is never won and the fight goes on, forever. From this perspective, a second Trump Presidency is an historic victory, but not the end by any means, for nothing ever is in history or politics.
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 