I have noticed, both in the broader media landscape and specifically here in the comment section at OTB some disagreement about how to talk about Trump’s various moves and pronouncements. The debate seems to be a version of now nearly decade long debate about how literally and/or seriously to take Trump. The discussion also seems to evoke questions of whether he is an incompetent buffoon or a dangerous authoritarian wannabe.
I suppose my flippant response is: “Why not both?”
I agree that a lot of what Trump does and says is bullying buffoonery at least partially deployed in a semi-calculated fashion to elicit outrage from his opponents and to control the narrative. Naming someone like Matt Gaetz was, in part, trolling the media, the political class, and the opposition. But, by the same token, Trump would not have withdrawn the name on his own. That is: if the Senate would have been willing to confirm him, Gaetz would have been AG.
In other words, we should never forget thart Trump wold have actually installed Gaetz had he ben allowed to do so. As such, it seems more than appropriate to have been outraged by the Gaetz pick. Moreover, the fact that he will end up with Gaetz lite in Pam Bondi is being treated as more of an improvement than is warranted.
All of these appointments, especially to key departments, remain a serious concern in my view.
I also don’t think that the incompetence will save us. Does it mean that there will be no maximalist version of Trumpism? Sure, but that is not exactly comforting. Not getting Matt Gaetz but getting Pam Bondi instead doesn’t make the outcome a good one.
There are also various assertions as to how “we” ought to react. I am unclear on who “we” is supposed to be. Is it everyone? Democrats voters? Democratic office-holders? The Left (whatever that means)? The anti-Trumpers? OTB writers? OTB commenters? “We” contains multitudes.
One thing is for sure, a blog is definitionally a reactive medium. News happens and we comment. A sober analysis of the true consequences of the second Trump administration’s effects cannot come until sometime in the 2030s. The full effects may not be known until even later than that.
Let me note, and speaking solely for myself (although I am guessing there is a great deal of overlap between myself and my co-bloggers), I take Trump very seriously. I do not always take him literally, insofar as I am aware that he makes outrageous claims and threats (e.g., 100% tariffs on BRIC countries). Indeed, it is baked into my responses insofar as I assume the reader knows I don’t think he is going to do everything he asserts. Nonetheless, I think that such threats are dangerous, even if there is little chance that they will come to pass.
I take the very act of such threats, even if they seem hyperbolic, as a problem in and of themselves. If we are talking about the relationships we have built in the global and the relative stability of our behavior then just making threats is a problem. If a husband constantly threatens a wife with divorce every time they have an argument, even if he isn’t likely to go through with the threat, it almost certainly has a damaging effect on the relationship, even if the couple stays together until death do they part. Threats and fear of outrageous outcomes are no way to manage a healthy relationship. And while the international order is heavily predicated on power, it is also realtional.
Of the things that are a problem regardless of which policies threats are actually implemented, and to what degree, is the obvious intellectual and philosophical rot that has deeply taken hold in the Republican Party and therefore into large swaths of the general population.
The RFK, Jr. nomination, for example, has resulted in numerous GOP operatives and politicians parroting his vaccine skepticism. He is a person who was considered a fringe crank not that long ago. Indeed, had it not been for his last name and the fortune that came with it, he would never have risen above Weird Dude on the Internet status. Indeed, his mainstreaming (he just wants us to be healthy!) is a gateway drug into my more nonsense being taken seriously.
The fact that US Senators are defending Pete Hegseth is a great example of what Orwll wrote about in 1984: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
For example.
And to my point about political allies and the contagion of stupid spreading into the general populace, note Larry Kudlow’s body language and general reaction.
Indeed, the GOP-o-sphere wants to pretend, in the main at least, that Trump’s picks are all normal and any concern about, say, and womanizing, possibly alcohol-abusing, TV host as SecDef is just normal partisan politics. Indeed, as CNN notes: Fox News ignores Pete Hegseth misconduct allegations as concerns over Trump pick mount.
Back to the notion that incompetence will save us, I continue to believe that we ain’t seen nothing yet when it comes to incompetence and while incompetence might well save us from some damage, just putting incompetent people, especially partisan hacks, in key positions will do major damage in and of itself.
Plus, some seem to have forgotten the first Trump administration. Here’s a trip down memory lane from the Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington: President Trump’s worst offenses. Note that the piece was from October of 2020, so the election denialism of November and December had yet to happen and January 6th was but a glint in the Proud Boys’ eyes. Side note: watching the swift reaction of the South Korean parliament to their situation has just underscored to me how remarkably unseriously January 6th has been taken in the US. The Republicans are the main malefactors there, but the country as a whole seems to have shrugged the whole thing off, more or less.
Here’s another list from CNN, which was done post-J6: Chronicling Trump’s 10 worst abuses of power. See, also this piece from the NYT about the first Trump term, As President, Trump Demanded Investigations of Foes. He Often Got Them.
All that is to point out that the clownish, buffoon with all his hyperbole and incompetence did a lot of damage the first time and that was with a lot of people standing in his way. This is, of course, why these appointments all matter so much.
But to bring this back around the what inspired this post in the first place, I think that we (there’s that word again, but I mean it quite expansively) are still struggling, even after all of this time, to know how to deal with Trump. I am at the point that while I can’t help but see him as a buffoon, I also can’t pretend like that will stave off many of his obviously dangerous political goals. Dismissing him and his administration is a mistake.
And I don’t know how else to write about the ongoing news save to call it as I see it until such a time as I have a solid reason to think otherwise.
To be clear, I still think that his approach to politics is fascistic, even though I know that sounds either hyperbolic or even hysterical to some but I will note that have tried to meticulously explain what I mean by that). Having said that, I have never made apocalyptic claims about his administration. I will admit that I still think that the mid-term elections will provide some level of corrective. I have some hope that 2028 will result in a shift away from Trumpism. But having noted that, the fact that I have to even say that (which is tantamount to saying that I believe that the sun will rise tomorrow–i.e., I shouldn’t have to say the obvious).
We don’t need the mass deportations of every single undocumented person, the cessation of elections, and 100% tariffs for Trump to do damage. While it is correct to say overreacting to Trump is a problem, so is under-reacting.
The entire discussion of pardons that James Joyner noted this morning just illustrates the corrosive effect of Trumpism on our politics. There would be no such discussion if Biden’s White House wasn’t taking Trump’s threats seriously, if not literally. And to be clear: I am not in favor of such pardons but cannot help but note that the entire discussion is the result of the already damaged norms surrounding the DoJ as created by Trump.
We are watching a profound and ongoing erosion of our political culture. I think we are watching a kind of Russification of our politics (as I noted here) wherein unreality is king, oligarchs are further empowered, and things like Justice are thoroughly politicized.
We have one of two major political parties having been largely taken over by the far-right. I have been reading Matthew Dallek’s book, Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right as part of a broader research project. What is striking, and thoroughly depressing, is that way in which that which was considered truly fringe in American politics has been mainstreamed. To bring it back to RFK, Jr. for a moment, we are not only back to talking about fluoride in our drinking water, but now the call is coming from inside the house, rather than being shouted by a a weird dude with a placard on the street corner.
So, while I understand that utterly freaking out at everything Trump does and says is unwarranted (not to mention exhausting), I also think that they all have to be taken quite seriously. One of Trump’s skills is to make maximalist claims and get people to accept a less maximal, yet still pretty awful outcome. I don’t think we should accept the notion that “Well, it is not nearly as bad as what he initially said!” as some kind of solace.
But, I am also curious. How should we talk about Trump and what does “we” mean in this context?
