Posted by JeffFrank on April 3, 2024, 15:14:22 Ish Cookoff Champion 2016
In Monday’s edition of The Triad, JVL considered the question: Even if Trump loses in 2024, how much damage will have been done?
His answer: Most likely, a lot.
Maybe the damage he does to the body politic lingers or becomes semi-permanent . . . I am concerned because if there is a quantum effect from Trump—if his pathology did impact not just the electorate but the institutions of civil society—then even defeating him in 2024 won’t be the end.
I think it’s worth elaborating a bit on this important if depressing point.
We’d all like to put our current unfortunate episode in our history in the rear view mirror.
But it won’t be easy.
When he took over from Richard Nixon in 1974, Gerald Ford said, “Our long national nightmare is over.” And he was mostly right. We held some people accountable, we fixed some institutions, and we were able to move on pretty quickly and fairly successfully.
But 50 years later, our Trumpian nightmare is not over.
After all: An authoritarian demagogue wins the nomination of one of our two major parties. He then wins the presidency. He governs as an authoritarian demagogue. His party—one of our two major parties, with the support of half the country—first falls in line, then is reshaped by him. He loses his reelection bid but attempts a coup, fails—but then re-emerges, utterly unapologetic and unreformed, as dominant as ever in his own party. He wins his party’s nomination for the third straight time.
This has been going on too long to be a mere nightmare. And the repercussions are too serious for us to simply be able to wake up and shake it off.
This was brought home to me recently in a couple of conversations with friends who’ve served in senior national security positions in the U.S. government. They talk to their former counterparts abroad all the time. And what struck them is that we’re already paying a price for Trump’s renomination.
As one of my friends summarized the private comments of his foreign counterparts:
You had the five-alarm fire of January 6th at home. You had the wake-up call of February 24, 2022, from Trump’s friend Putin, abroad. But still the Republican party does not turn its back on Trump? Instead they rush to embrace him? They renominate him? And now the American people are considering putting back in the presidency in November? How could this happen? How do we know, even if he loses, that it won’t happen again? It would be irresponsible not to take the lessons of the last several years seriously.
This is true abroad and it’s true at home. Even if Trump loses this fall, so much damage will already have been done. Even if Republicans pay far more of a price than now seems likely for embracing and imitating Trump, even if authoritarian conservatism and shameless lying and crazed conspiracism all recede after November 5, 2024, we will have a major project of governmental, political, and civic reconstruction ahead.
But repudiation must precede reconstruction, and so far we have failed—our institutions, our people, our system have failed—to repudiate Trump and Trumpism. The United States recovered from previous demagogic and authoritarian episodes because, after their turns in the spotlight, men like Henry Wallace and Joe McCarthy and George Wallace were no longer respectable even in their own parties.
This is the opposite of the case today. The renomination of Trump is proof of the normalization of Trumpism.
I haven’t re-read Allan Bloom’s “The Closing of the American Mind’ in quite a while, but in thinking about our situation its sober closing sentence comes to mind: “The gravity of our given task is great, and it is very much in doubt how the future will judge our stewardship.”
In Monday’s edition of The Triad, JVL considered the question: Even if Trump loses in 2024, how much damage will have been done?
His answer: Most likely, a lot.
Maybe the damage he does to the body politic lingers or becomes semi-permanent . . . I am concerned because if there is a quantum effect from Trump—if his pathology did impact not just the electorate but the institutions of civil society—then even defeating him in 2024 won’t be the end.
I think it’s worth elaborating a bit on this important if depressing point.
We’d all like to put our current unfortunate episode in our history in the rear view mirror.
But it won’t be easy.
When he took over from Richard Nixon in 1974, Gerald Ford said, “Our long national nightmare is over.” And he was mostly right. We held some people accountable, we fixed some institutions, and we were able to move on pretty quickly and fairly successfully.
But 50 years later, our Trumpian nightmare is not over.
After all: An authoritarian demagogue wins the nomination of one of our two major parties. He then wins the presidency. He governs as an authoritarian demagogue. His party—one of our two major parties, with the support of half the country—first falls in line, then is reshaped by him. He loses his reelection bid but attempts a coup, fails—but then re-emerges, utterly unapologetic and unreformed, as dominant as ever in his own party. He wins his party’s nomination for the third straight time.
This has been going on too long to be a mere nightmare. And the repercussions are too serious for us to simply be able to wake up and shake it off.
This was brought home to me recently in a couple of conversations with friends who’ve served in senior national security positions in the U.S. government. They talk to their former counterparts abroad all the time. And what struck them is that we’re already paying a price for Trump’s renomination.
As one of my friends summarized the private comments of his foreign counterparts:
You had the five-alarm fire of January 6th at home. You had the wake-up call of February 24, 2022, from Trump’s friend Putin, abroad. But still the Republican party does not turn its back on Trump? Instead they rush to embrace him? They renominate him? And now the American people are considering putting back in the presidency in November? How could this happen? How do we know, even if he loses, that it won’t happen again? It would be irresponsible not to take the lessons of the last several years seriously.
This is true abroad and it’s true at home. Even if Trump loses this fall, so much damage will already have been done. Even if Republicans pay far more of a price than now seems likely for embracing and imitating Trump, even if authoritarian conservatism and shameless lying and crazed conspiracism all recede after November 5, 2024, we will have a major project of governmental, political, and civic reconstruction ahead.
But repudiation must precede reconstruction, and so far we have failed—our institutions, our people, our system have failed—to repudiate Trump and Trumpism. The United States recovered from previous demagogic and authoritarian episodes because, after their turns in the spotlight, men like Henry Wallace and Joe McCarthy and George Wallace were no longer respectable even in their own parties.
This is the opposite of the case today. The renomination of Trump is proof of the normalization of Trumpism.
I haven’t re-read Allan Bloom’s “The Closing of the American Mind’ in quite a while, but in thinking about our situation its sober closing sentence comes to mind: “The gravity of our given task is great, and it is very much in doubt how the future will judge our stewardship.”
—William Kristol
And the only way to save it is to subvert it! *sob*
In Monday’s edition of The Triad, JVL considered the question: Even if Trump loses in 2024, how much damage will have been done?
His answer: Most likely, a lot.
Maybe the damage he does to the body politic lingers or becomes semi-permanent . . . I am concerned because if there is a quantum effect from Trump—if his pathology did impact not just the electorate but the institutions of civil society—then even defeating him in 2024 won’t be the end.
I think it’s worth elaborating a bit on this important if depressing point.
We’d all like to put our current unfortunate episode in our history in the rear view mirror.
But it won’t be easy.
When he took over from Richard Nixon in 1974, Gerald Ford said, “Our long national nightmare is over.” And he was mostly right. We held some people accountable, we fixed some institutions, and we were able to move on pretty quickly and fairly successfully.
But 50 years later, our Trumpian nightmare is not over.
After all: An authoritarian demagogue wins the nomination of one of our two major parties. He then wins the presidency. He governs as an authoritarian demagogue. His party—one of our two major parties, with the support of half the country—first falls in line, then is reshaped by him. He loses his reelection bid but attempts a coup, fails—but then re-emerges, utterly unapologetic and unreformed, as dominant as ever in his own party. He wins his party’s nomination for the third straight time.
This has been going on too long to be a mere nightmare. And the repercussions are too serious for us to simply be able to wake up and shake it off.
This was brought home to me recently in a couple of conversations with friends who’ve served in senior national security positions in the U.S. government. They talk to their former counterparts abroad all the time. And what struck them is that we’re already paying a price for Trump’s renomination.
As one of my friends summarized the private comments of his foreign counterparts:
You had the five-alarm fire of January 6th at home. You had the wake-up call of February 24, 2022, from Trump’s friend Putin, abroad. But still the Republican party does not turn its back on Trump? Instead they rush to embrace him? They renominate him? And now the American people are considering putting back in the presidency in November? How could this happen? How do we know, even if he loses, that it won’t happen again? It would be irresponsible not to take the lessons of the last several years seriously.
This is true abroad and it’s true at home. Even if Trump loses this fall, so much damage will already have been done. Even if Republicans pay far more of a price than now seems likely for embracing and imitating Trump, even if authoritarian conservatism and shameless lying and crazed conspiracism all recede after November 5, 2024, we will have a major project of governmental, political, and civic reconstruction ahead.
But repudiation must precede reconstruction, and so far we have failed—our institutions, our people, our system have failed—to repudiate Trump and Trumpism. The United States recovered from previous demagogic and authoritarian episodes because, after their turns in the spotlight, men like Henry Wallace and Joe McCarthy and George Wallace were no longer respectable even in their own parties.
This is the opposite of the case today. The renomination of Trump is proof of the normalization of Trumpism.
I haven’t re-read Allan Bloom’s “The Closing of the American Mind’ in quite a while, but in thinking about our situation its sober closing sentence comes to mind: “The gravity of our given task is great, and it is very much in doubt how the future will judge our stewardship.”
—William Kristol
The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants.
In Monday’s edition of The Triad, JVL considered the question: Even if Trump loses in 2024, how much damage will have been done?
His answer: Most likely, a lot.
Maybe the damage he does to the body politic lingers or becomes semi-permanent . . . I am concerned because if there is a quantum effect from Trump—if his pathology did impact not just the electorate but the institutions of civil society—then even defeating him in 2024 won’t be the end.
I think it’s worth elaborating a bit on this important if depressing point.
We’d all like to put our current unfortunate episode in our history in the rear view mirror.
But it won’t be easy.
When he took over from Richard Nixon in 1974, Gerald Ford said, “Our long national nightmare is over.” And he was mostly right. We held some people accountable, we fixed some institutions, and we were able to move on pretty quickly and fairly successfully.
But 50 years later, our Trumpian nightmare is not over.
After all: An authoritarian demagogue wins the nomination of one of our two major parties. He then wins the presidency. He governs as an authoritarian demagogue. His party—one of our two major parties, with the support of half the country—first falls in line, then is reshaped by him. He loses his reelection bid but attempts a coup, fails—but then re-emerges, utterly unapologetic and unreformed, as dominant as ever in his own party. He wins his party’s nomination for the third straight time.
This has been going on too long to be a mere nightmare. And the repercussions are too serious for us to simply be able to wake up and shake it off.
This was brought home to me recently in a couple of conversations with friends who’ve served in senior national security positions in the U.S. government. They talk to their former counterparts abroad all the time. And what struck them is that we’re already paying a price for Trump’s renomination.
As one of my friends summarized the private comments of his foreign counterparts:
You had the five-alarm fire of January 6th at home. You had the wake-up call of February 24, 2022, from Trump’s friend Putin, abroad. But still the Republican party does not turn its back on Trump? Instead they rush to embrace him? They renominate him? And now the American people are considering putting back in the presidency in November? How could this happen? How do we know, even if he loses, that it won’t happen again? It would be irresponsible not to take the lessons of the last several years seriously.
This is true abroad and it’s true at home. Even if Trump loses this fall, so much damage will already have been done. Even if Republicans pay far more of a price than now seems likely for embracing and imitating Trump, even if authoritarian conservatism and shameless lying and crazed conspiracism all recede after November 5, 2024, we will have a major project of governmental, political, and civic reconstruction ahead.
But repudiation must precede reconstruction, and so far we have failed—our institutions, our people, our system have failed—to repudiate Trump and Trumpism. The United States recovered from previous demagogic and authoritarian episodes because, after their turns in the spotlight, men like Henry Wallace and Joe McCarthy and George Wallace were no longer respectable even in their own parties.
This is the opposite of the case today. The renomination of Trump is proof of the normalization of Trumpism.
I haven’t re-read Allan Bloom’s “The Closing of the American Mind’ in quite a while, but in thinking about our situation its sober closing sentence comes to mind: “The gravity of our given task is great, and it is very much in doubt how the future will judge our stewardship.”
In Monday’s edition of The Triad, JVL considered the question: Even if Trump loses in 2024, how much damage will have been done?
His answer: Most likely, a lot.
Maybe the damage he does to the body politic lingers or becomes semi-permanent . . . I am concerned because if there is a quantum effect from Trump—if his pathology did impact not just the electorate but the institutions of civil society—then even defeating him in 2024 won’t be the end.
I think it’s worth elaborating a bit on this important if depressing point.
We’d all like to put our current unfortunate episode in our history in the rear view mirror.
But it won’t be easy.
When he took over from Richard Nixon in 1974, Gerald Ford said, “Our long national nightmare is over.” And he was mostly right. We held some people accountable, we fixed some institutions, and we were able to move on pretty quickly and fairly successfully.
But 50 years later, our Trumpian nightmare is not over.
After all: An authoritarian demagogue wins the nomination of one of our two major parties. He then wins the presidency. He governs as an authoritarian demagogue. His party—one of our two major parties, with the support of half the country—first falls in line, then is reshaped by him. He loses his reelection bid but attempts a coup, fails—but then re-emerges, utterly unapologetic and unreformed, as dominant as ever in his own party. He wins his party’s nomination for the third straight time.
This has been going on too long to be a mere nightmare. And the repercussions are too serious for us to simply be able to wake up and shake it off.
This was brought home to me recently in a couple of conversations with friends who’ve served in senior national security positions in the U.S. government. They talk to their former counterparts abroad all the time. And what struck them is that we’re already paying a price for Trump’s renomination.
As one of my friends summarized the private comments of his foreign counterparts:
You had the five-alarm fire of January 6th at home. You had the wake-up call of February 24, 2022, from Trump’s friend Putin, abroad. But still the Republican party does not turn its back on Trump? Instead they rush to embrace him? They renominate him? And now the American people are considering putting back in the presidency in November? How could this happen? How do we know, even if he loses, that it won’t happen again? It would be irresponsible not to take the lessons of the last several years seriously.
This is true abroad and it’s true at home. Even if Trump loses this fall, so much damage will already have been done. Even if Republicans pay far more of a price than now seems likely for embracing and imitating Trump, even if authoritarian conservatism and shameless lying and crazed conspiracism all recede after November 5, 2024, we will have a major project of governmental, political, and civic reconstruction ahead.
But repudiation must precede reconstruction, and so far we have failed—our institutions, our people, our system have failed—to repudiate Trump and Trumpism. The United States recovered from previous demagogic and authoritarian episodes because, after their turns in the spotlight, men like Henry Wallace and Joe McCarthy and George Wallace were no longer respectable even in their own parties.
This is the opposite of the case today. The renomination of Trump is proof of the normalization of Trumpism.
I haven’t re-read Allan Bloom’s “The Closing of the American Mind’ in quite a while, but in thinking about our situation its sober closing sentence comes to mind: “The gravity of our given task is great, and it is very much in doubt how the future will judge our stewardship.”
—William Kristol
The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants.
on April 3, 2024, 15:14:22
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