Trump's Last Stand

Why America Is Not Jumping the Shark

Would you prefer to die from electrocution or be eaten by a shark? I only ask, because the ex-president of the United States raised this philosophical question last week in a campaign speech. The fact that Trump felt the need to raise these possibilities could be a sign of a guilty conscience. Perhaps, metaphorically-speaking, Trump sees himself like Robert Shaw in Jaws, sliding down the sinking boat into the gaping mouth of the US Justice Department.

But it’s never a good idea to count on happy endings in politics, not these days nor any other days. You can hope for them and try and imagine what they might be, but that doesn’t mean that you get the outcome you want. And, the lesson of the last seven years is that you should never allow yourself to believe something simply because it makes you feel better.

Once upon a time there were those who never believed that a man like Trump could become president, but he did. By the end of his four-year reign of unprecedented lies and chaos, which - among other things - resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans through his catastrophic mismanagement of the pandemic - there were those who could not believe that a president who had behaved like that could possibly win a second term.

But he very nearly did. And when he refused to accept defeat and tried to overturn, and incited a violent mob to attack the Capitol building, there were those who thought, surely now, the scales must fall from his supporters’ eyes? Surely now, even the angriest and most embittered MAGA voter, would see that this was a man who had attempted to undermine his own country’s democratic institutions and thwart the ‘will of the people’, which so many of them claim to care so much about? Surely even the Republican politicians who had supported him would say, enough is enough, and back away from him?

Surely, after the Jean Carroll case, it would finally come clear even to Trump’s evangelical supporters, that the man they thought was ‘God’s flawed vessel’ was a rapist, a liar, a con-man, a crook, and a tawdry instrument of mammon?

No to all these questions.

When Biden won in 2020, there were those - myself included - who hoped that a few years of competent government would drain the destructive toxins from the MAGA movement. But that movement has remained unmoved. Even Trump accumulated an incredible 91 charges, surely now, NOW, the voters and politicians that had clung to this garish monstrosity would pull away in shame and disgust? Surely the cowardly politicians who had supported him only in public would be emboldened to speak out? Surely the voters who believed that he cared about them would feel just a teeny weeny bit betrayed?

Negative. In fact Trump’s support amongst Republicans has actually increased as a result of these charges. As things now stand, Trump is streets ahead of his Republican contenders, most of whom are as bad as he is, or at least don’t have the courage to say how bad they know he is. Last week Trump gave some reminders of who he is, and who his supporters are:

• On the campaign trail in South Carolina, he visited the Palmetto State Armoury - a gunshop known for its use of imagery associated with the far-right ‘boogaloo’ movement. In August a white supremacist killed three black people in Jacksonville with an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle that he bought from the store. According to initial accounts, Trump bought a Glock pistol - which would have been in violation of federal law given that he faces criminal charges - though his team subsequently claimed only to have expressed interest in buying one.

• That same week he suggested that the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, should have been executed for treason - an allegation that has obliged Milley to take security precautions. This message was echoed by the Arizona Republican Representative Paul Gosar - one of so many ghouls who haunt the GOP’s year-round Halloween, who wrote that ‘In a better society, quislings like the strange sodomy-promoting General Milley would be hung.’

• At a speech to the Republican Convention in California, Trump pledged to have shoplifters shot. He also mocked Joe Biden for getting lost on stage and he laughed at ‘crazy’ Nancy Pelosi’s husband, who was nearly beaten to death with a hammer - a gag that prompted a chorus of laughter from his audience

That laughter gives an indication of why Trump is still a contender, because this audience is not laughing at Trump but with him, and supporters like that are not going to be put off by criminal indictments, rape victims or anything else. It’s not just that they believe the charges against Trump are the product of a ‘deep state’ conspiracy. They don’t care if the charges are true.

They don’t like Trump in spite of his cruelty: they like him because of it. They are complicit in his cruelty, and his cruelty is part and parcel of his party’s political identity. Consider that House Republicans nearly brought the US government to a halt last weekend, by voting for a savage swathe of cuts to law enforcement, poverty relief, education, childcare, and -incredibly - to a Meals on Wheels program for more than one million seniors.

These cuts were driven by the MAGA ‘Freedom Caucus’ cohort in Congress to which white nationalist lowlifes like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert belong, and which basically does Trump’s bidding. At the last moment, Biden’s budget was approved, with the single exception of military aid to Ukraine.

That was a a goal that Trump had supported, and no on will be surprised that it was celebrated by Elon Musk, and will no doubt go down well in Moscow too.

All this may be just a taste of what is coming down the road if Trump wins a second term. From Trump’s point of view, he has to win in order to stay out of jail. And if he does, he and his movement will take revenge on the law enforcement agencies and the individuals that indicted him. He will pardon himself and everyone who has been indicted for attempting to overturn the 2020 election and for the assault on the Capitol. He will legitimize corruption and criminality on an epic scale.

He will transform America into the closest that it has ever been to a fascist state - a state that will effectively be in thrall to Putin’s Russia. It will be the end of American democracy, and it will have calamitous consequences for democracies elsewhere.

None of this inevitable, but nor should any of these dire possibilities be dismissed. According to the average of various polls collated by Real Clear Politics, Trump is the current favourite to pip Joe Biden to the presidency in the 2024 US presidential election.

Polling consistently indicates that Biden has approval ratings in the mid-40s. Such ratings don’t guarantee defeat. Trump isn’t much more popular amongst voters overall. Independent candidates could drain crucial votes away from either of the two. Trump could even be in jail before November next year. That wouldn’t necessarily stop him, or have any impact on his cult, or translate into support for Biden.

Last month, a CNN poll found that 73 percent of voters believe Biden’s age may affect his physical and mental competence, and 76 percent doubt that he will be able to serve a full term if elected.

These figures should make grim reading. Last month Biden reiterated what is likely to be a core message of his campaign, when he attacked the ‘extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs of our democracy: The MAGA movement.’ Biden also pointed out that ‘Their extreme agenda, if carried out, would fundamentally alter the institutions of American democracy as we know it.’

All true. And it’s precisely for that reason that the campaign to prevent this outcome should not be led by a man who the majority of Americans don’t believe should be president. In 2020, Biden pulled off an amazing achievement, effectively mounting a campaign from his basement in the midst of a devastating pandemic in which open campaigning was difficult, and often impossible.

There is no guarantee that, four years older, he can do the same thing. And with just over a year to go before the election, those who want to prevent the implementation of Trump’s ‘extreme agenda’ ought to be feeling much more confident in his principal opponent than they do.

Debates about whether Trump’s MAGA cohorts represent a genuine fascist movement, are often too rigidly fixated in the fascist movements of the 1920s and 30s, with black uniforms, militarism and shiny leather boots. But there can be little doubt that a second Trump term will be as close to fascism as America has ever seen. It will be a threat to the constitution and the rule of law, concentrating power in the hands of a criminal executive. It will undermine and actively attack women’s rights, and the rights of minorities, migrants, and LGBTQ communities.

It will weaponize xenophobia, embolden white supremacist paramilitaries, legitimize corruption and outright political gangsterism, entrench the GOP as the permanent party of government, replace even the idea of an enabling state with anti-woke intolerance and censorship. It will empower similar movements across the world.

And yet there doesn’t appear to be any sense of urgency in the Democratic Party about these possible outcomes. If there was, the Dems would not be seeking to win the 2024 election with an 80-year-old man in whom the majority of Americans have no confidence, but seeking to build an across-the-board coalition that includes anti-Trump Republicans, centrist, right and left wing Democrats and beyond. They would be looking for the candidate with the best possibility of presiding over a movement like this and guiding it to victory.

They would be mobilizing every resource that liberal America can muster, and preparing to fight Trump and Trumpism with the same ferocity that Trump and his movement will bring to bear against them. The Democrats might not be the party you would choose to lead a campaign like this, but they are the only ones who can do it. They can’t just go through the usual motions in the hope that normality will be restored. These are not normal times when normal wins. These are Weimar times, and the Democrats need to show that they understand this.

That means finding alternative leadership as soon as possible, because it is madness to enter a fight like this with a leader who your own potential voters don’t believe is up to it. For the next thirteen months, Biden will be constantly in the public eye. One trip. One slip of the tongue. One moment of tiredness, forgetfulness or slowness, and Biden will become sleepy Joe or senile Joe, and his credibility will be torn to shreds.

To go forward, knowing that this might happen, is like walking towards an elephant trap that you laid yourself. There are other potential contenders: Gretchen Whitmer. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Gavin Newsom. Elizabeth Warren. Pete Buttigieg and others.

Each of these politicians has their strengths, weaknesses, and possibilities. It’s up to the Democrats and the voters to find the one who works best and can lead the coalition required, the sooner the better.

The best thing Biden could do right now, for his party, and more to the point, for his country, would be to announce that he will not be running, and initiate the process of choosing his successor. It would be an honourable exit, and it would pave the way for a revitalised democratic movement to take on Trump and his movement, and confine both to the dustbin of history.

All democracies are flawed. But you don’t have to believe in the shining city on the hill to recognize that a Trump victory would be a blow to everything good about America, and a blow to democracies everywhere.

The Democrats have the responsibility to prevent that outcome, and lead the resistance to it. If they don’t live up to it, they will never be forgiven, and they won’t deserve to be.