"In this lonely world, what a lovely curl."
The first in a three-part series on what a second Donald Trump administration is going to mean for future of the United States.
This week’s soundtrack: Tara Jane O’Neil - “Curling”
On Monday morning, the United States Supreme Court unanimously decided that Colorado could not keep former president Donald Trump off its presidential ballot (at least not for the 14th amendment reasons). This was certainly one of the long-shot possibilities that could’ve derailed the big guy’s march to a second term (as I outlined in January), but alas, it didn’t happen. Today is Super Tuesday and Trump will certainly win most of the contests today.
Unless Trump or Joe Biden dies in the next eight months (a definite possibility!), we’re stuck with a 2020 rematch. Polling increasingly suggests that the former president can win the presidency again, as Biden’s recent popularity is hovering around a smooth 38%, down from his average 43%.
(Here’s a prediction: We’re never going to have another president with an average 50% approval rating for the term. American society is simply too bifurcated, we know too much about our leaders and nationalism is less pervasive. Opposition party legislators, state officials and media mouthpieces have no reason to govern or support an opposing party’s president, which moves the public the same way. Similarly, the larger American problems – economic inequality, most notably – are far from being solved in any meaningful way and Americans attach that to the White House, whether it actually can do anything about those problems.)
Democrats can crow all they want about the prominent criticism of Biden, but – as evident by the poll numbers – it’s hardly a top-down issue. For all of his “uniter” rhetoric, a lot of people are not too fond of the guy. They’re not fond of Trump, either, but polling suggests that Biden has a higher unfavorable differential (-15) than the big guy (-8). According to Last Vegas bookmakers, Trump is a bigger favorite to win in November than Biden is. That certainly surprised me, but I’ve clearly become inured to the whims of the American public and its short memory regarding a non-serious person with his hands on the nuclear codes.
Right now, Trump – this guy! – is the favorite to take the oath of office in January 2025 again. Today’s newsletter is the first of three that will examine what that will look like, from someone who has covered Trump’s political career. Next week, I’ll examine what Trump’s second term will mean for society and the week after, I’ll look at the effect a second Trump term will mean for the administrative state. Today? Politics.
To say that Donald Trump changed the course of American politics is a bit of an understatement. His reshaping of the Republican party is vast.
This week, we saw Nikki Haley win her first primary by winning the D.C. primary. In a way, it was the most perfectly illustrative notion of this cycle: Haley won a primary that consists of a grand total of ~20,000 registered Republicans, many of whom are professional Republicans. The ~people~ didn’t really choose Haley, but the swamp absolutely did.
In a different world, Haley would be the candidate. In a world with more smoke-filled rooms, with more party control, with a less celebrity-based culture… Haley’s win would matter. In that world, of course, Ron DeSantis – a perfect GOP candidate, in theory – would’ve won the primary, but they don’t hold elections in theory. The voters vote and GOP voters fucking Trump. According to a recent Siena College/NYT poll, 83% of Republicans favor Trump. He has remade the party in his image.
Politics under Trump have become coarser, by a huge factor, largely because he becomes the comparison point for everything. When Al Franken got (rightfully) bounced by the Democrats, a common refrain was something like “Well, he’s not Trump!” I personally had arguments years ago about the ethics problems with people like Lloyd Austin, Anthony Blinken and Tom Vilsack that included “would you rather have Rex Tillerson?”
This, broadly, is not an argument worth having, but it does illustrate how low the bar has fallen around the discourse about ethics in government and politics. Trump’s nominees were what they were (and will be worse in a second term), but his acolytes in the political realm are similarly coarse and devoid of ethics, writ large.
Take Matt Gaetz. Gaetz has a 2008 DUI arrest under his belt (charges were dropped) that has barely ever been part of the discourse around him because of set of (since scuttled) sex trafficking charges. The House being what it is, it’s unlikely Gaetz will or could lose an election, but more than that, he was basically the driving force behind the rise and fall of Kevin McCarthy. It feels a million years ago, but to refresh your memory: Gaetz and other Trump-aligned GOPers basically stamped their feet until they got concessions out of more centrist GOP House members, which McCarthy had to actually concede that he wanted the government not to shut down, which Gaetz and co. then took as a reneg on a promise.
It was the triumph of extremism, led by a tiny portion of the House. As with many things Trump-aligned, it was using the rules to force an outcome that only satisfies a tiny group. Trump has, of course, done this through the slow speed of the courts and through the Electoral College.
There is asymmetry here, of course, in that Democrats aren’t running extreme candidates in the same way, but the American political environment is only made of two real parties. Mitch McConnell is going away and a Trump-friendly successor will almost certainly become the Republican leader in the Senate; the speaker mess was full of the same stuff. Are we that far away from Marjorie Taylor Greene in a leadership role?
Right now, the Republican party is completely beholden to Trump. Every primary opponent Trump has had in this previous two elections have bowed to him; DeSantis could never figure him out and Haley is still trying to thread that needle. The GOP is no longer anything but the part of the big guy.
Despite its coalition with the puritan right, the rise of Trump has made Republican Party far coarser. The uptight family values have been replaced by one of Trump’s closest allies showing photos of Hunter Biden receiving oral sex on the floor of the House (oddly enough, during an IRS hearing), Lauren Boebert getting kicked out of a theater performance for doing “hand stuff” and, well, whatever is going on with Trump at any given moment.
Much has been written about the disconnect between religious Christians and their relationship with Trump, but aside from that, I’m reminded of how people reacted when George W. Bush was caught on a hot mic calling a reporter an “asshole.” Yes, that was a long time ago, but it nonetheless feels like it was epochs ago.
Trump himself will shuttle off this mortal coil sooner rather than later (again, linear time being what it is) and DeSantis has shown that Trumpism without Trump is hardly the most effective politics. But, to deny his effect on our body politic is foolish; 147 people voted, essentially, for the insurrection! Kari Lake could win in Arizona, Trump himself could win in November, who knows who will be his successor in the national Republican party. Trump’s effect on politics is going to be far reaching and the never surrender, never admit defeat ethos has become the norm.
Lulu Update
My girl had a nice vet appointment last week and got her annual shots. She was, as happens, the hit of the vet office.
