While self-awareness and an appreciation for irony might be at historical lows, did Democrats think Trump was going to play nice after they impeached him twice, tried to ban him from the ballot, bankrupt his businesses, and put him in jail for several lifetimes?
Though much virtual ink has been shed on the extremity of our political polarization, very little of it has considered how the situation resolves itself outside the frequently promised Civil War or national divorce. In a country split roughly down the middle over foundational issues from the meaning of human rights to the nature of governance with the very means by which to govern in the first place in between, how do you break the stalemate? While a few have recommended that we listen to each other more, be kinder or more understanding in some ill-defined fashion, or some other process that would presumably bring about a form of compromise between the two dominant factions, Republicans and Democrats and their respective conservatives and progressive backers, the reality is likely to be much different and a whole lot rougher until one side is ascendant. In politics, there are winners and losers, and to paraphrase Bruce Springsteen’s seminal “Atlantic City,” politicians don’t want to get caught on the wrong side of that line. Compromise, from this perspective, might be a viable strategy in certain situations where the perceived gain is bigger than whatever is traded to achieve it, but it’s not a winning one, especially when either side believes fundamental values and issues of existential importance are at stake. While we might rest easier believing a stalemate can be resolved on issues alone – that one side’s ideas are so superior in some fashion voters will become convinced that side must be right to the point where they embrace them above the other – the rules of the game are equally important, the way in which we decide what to do and how to do it, making the process and the actors in the process as much, if not more of a battle ground than the underlying policy. In that regard, there is no doubt that many of our processes have dramatically changed over the past two decades, frequently, many would say for the worse to the point where both sides have variously claimed big-D democracy itself is at stake. For example, there has been a marked increase in gerrymandering districts in the House of Representatives, leading towards less competitive seats and more Congressmen and women becoming more ideological, less likely to compromise. The filibuster has also been weakened with more laws passed under the simple majority “reconciliation” threshold than the traditional 60 vote super majority, and a simple majority is now the only requirement for presidential appointments including Supreme Court Justices. Executive orders have skyrocketed as Presidents seek to get more of their agenda enacted without Congress. Last, but certainly not least, investigations into political figures, something the country avoided for most of our history, have exploded, first with President Donald Trump being charged with almost a hundred crimes, now with Trump himself investigating the people that investigated and charged him and others. The combination of these and other factors has led many to ask how and when it ends, but the answer, at least in my opinion, isn’t exactly comforting in the least: It ends when one side beats the other so badly, they start begging for mercy.
While this probably isn’t what the average person wants to hear, having already grown tired of political machinations and prognostications delivered on an hourly basis, the choice facing both parties is either prevail or surrender. President Trump, it seems, understands this implicitly, or at least that’s the only way I can think of to properly explain the scorched earth approach he’s taken since resuming the Oval Office on January 20. Whether you love him or hate him, there is no doubt the President has been aggressively advancing his agenda on every front imaginable regardless of what the option thinks, says, or does, even at times intentionally goading them. He’s passed landmark legislation, signed a record number of executive orders, used tariff powers in more expansive and shall we say, novel ways than any President in modern history, and simultaneously engaged Democrats on a redistricting battle in Republican led states while announcing very public investigations into key figures from the Russian Collusion debacle and his various indictments at the local, state, and federal level. Perhaps needless to say, Democrats have expressed various, often near hyperbolic levels of outrage on every front and then some, but one has to wonder what they expected upon his return to the White House. While self-awareness and an appreciation for irony might be at historical lows, did they think he was going to play nice after they impeached him twice, tried to ban him from the ballot, bankrupt his businesses, and put him in jail for several lifetimes? Democrats and their progressive backers might truly believe – and continue to believe – he deserved all this and more, but that’s not the way it works, nor has it ever been. From President Trump’s perspective, the only realistic option should he regain office was to hit back harder than he was hit in the first place for two reasons, especially after he survived and thrived when he was the target of these machinations. First, there was no peace to be had with Democrats, or at least no peace that would last until they retook the House of Representatives in 2026 and impeached him a third time. Even if he opted to bring them into the process and tried to forge a compromise on key issues, everyone knows their base would have demanded an immediate impeachment should they control Congress again, and any peace would necessarily be short-lived. Of course, President Trump is also answerable to his own base, who rightly or wrongly believe the charges against him amounted to political persecution and those involved needed to be held accountable for their actions. This combination of pressure from his most fervent supporters and the sure knowledge that no truce could be had with the opposition left him with only one real option: Kill or be killed, politically speaking, and it should be no surprise that he chose to attempt to destroy his enemies rather than ultimately be destroyed.
To me at least, the only surprising thing about this development is that Democrats didn’t see it coming and appeared to have no plan at all to counteract it, perhaps because they truly believed President Trump could be taken out before the election or, if somehow he survived the legal onslaught, it would be impossible for him to win after being so damaged in the media. Generally speaking, one of the only realities that has kept the two major political parties in check before and after the Civil War is the sure knowledge that whatever someone did to their opponents would be done to them, ten fold, or as Sean Connery put it in The Untouchables, “He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way.” When we reference so-called democratic norms two hundred fifty years after the Declaration of Independence, we’re really talking about the only tenuously agreed upon rules of engagement, lines that politicians do not usually cross for fear crossing them will ultimately redound to our own detriment when the opposition party is in power. For almost 250 years, politicians have been keenly aware that political power ebbs and flows between the parties and no party has ever maintained power forever; even after losing the Civil War and being branded traitors by their fellow citizens, Democrats won the presidency with Grover Cleveland barely twenty years later. Confronted with this, the parties have generally agreed to a kind of ritualized detente, sprung from custom more than law, probing at the edges, but not crossing certain lines because once they are crossed – and clearly they have been crossed whether anyone thinks the effort was justified or not – they will be crossed again and cease to be meaningful in any sense. This is precisely what happened starting in 2016 with Russian Collusion and continuing after 2020 with the onslaught of indictments, however anyone would try to explain it otherwise. Thus, when outlets like NPR report on “How Trump is using government power to target his enemies,” claiming “When Donald Trump campaigned for president, he promised his followers payback…It was not just campaign rhetoric,” the only truly meaningful point is that this government power had already been used to target him and his supporters. Likewise, when CBS News reported that “Democrats accuse Trump administration of weaponizing law enforcement to silence political foes,” citing no less than Eric Swalwell, an impeachment manager who tried to have President Trump removed from office during his first term, the only question they should be asking is, what did he think was going to happen if Trump prevailed? Did he truly believe he was going to play nice with those who tried to remove him from office, prevent him from running again, and throw him in jail? If so, how could he have possibly come to that conclusion?
At this point, President Trump’s position is exceedingly simple. There should be no mystery or surprise about it. He has not only survived, but prospered. He is ascendant and armed with the vast powers of the Presidency. Therefore, he will – no, he must – do everything possible on every possible front to advance his agenda and punish his enemies, betting both that his agenda will prove successful and that he will maintain his standing with the Republican base by delivering the retribution they demand. Nothing in my mind, at least, could be more obvious, and given that he has no incentive to let up, the only question is what actually happens between now and the midterm elections in 2026 followed by the next presidential election in 2028. If President Trump’s agenda proves successful – and despite the constant doom and gloom there are at least some indications that it very well could be – the Democrats will be in the unfortunate position of being disliked by the American people, out of step with a growing economy, increased wages, a controlled border, reduced crime and more, while being harried and stymied by admittedly political persecutions. Further, because they have so vociferously opposed the Administration at every possible turn, they will have no ability whatsoever to capitalize on any success and fairly or even unfairly take credit for it. All they will have is outrage and impotence, and while midterm elections generally favor the party out of power, historical trends are frequently broken – see President Trump himself if you need more evidence. Regardless, neither makes much of a campaign slogan while both tend to depress political bases and repel average people. Whatever happens next year, the 2028 election is likely to be a far more pivotal point, where we might finally have some clarity on the future direction of the country and some resolution to the current stalemate. Simply put, President Trump’s opponents will either be pulverized beyond the point of recognition or ascendant themselves. If the President’s successor prevails, it’s possible Democrats will be begging for mercy, hoping for an opportunity to return to the good graces of the voting public. At that point, they will have lost to President Trump twice, narrowly won once only to produce a generally maligned President in Joe Biden, and ultimately lost to President Trump’s successor. Anything is possible, but it’s hard to see how that sort of shellacking over twelve years plus the new Republican’s term doesn’t prompt a political realignment similar to President Bill Clinton repositioning the party in the center after three consecutive Republican wins. Someone new is likely to emerge – perhaps even as early as 2028. If, however, the second Trump Presidency goes down in proverbial flames and Democrats retake the White House in 2028, the battle is likely to continue until at least 2032 as the heirs to President Trump himself compete with more establishment leaning Republicans for power. During this time, it will be the Democrats who attempt to make their opponents beg for mercy, as they should.
Either way, the political beatdown will continue until one side realizes the error of their ways and begins begging. Politics, after all, is about power and power requires force to bend your opponents to their will. Therefore, any power that is available to a politician, especially one they believe can be used without repercussions to them or their party, or that has been used against them, will be used. We might not like it, but this has been true ever since Thomas Jefferson betrayed Alexander Hamilton by leaking details of his affair with Maria Reynolds. For better or worse, nothing has changed since, only the names of the players.
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 