The historical origins of Trumpism (1)

Of course, I was relieved when my fears regarding Trump's possible re-election were not realised (see blogposts from June and July 2020). However, I have to point out that, were it not for the pandemic, Trump would probably have been re-elected. At the start of 2020, the opinion polls were pointing that way. Despite all the accumulated evidence of Trump's criminality, cruelty, bigotry, vanity, stupidity and ignorance (and his spectacular record of failure in business) a huge proportion of Americans did vote for him, a greater number than in 2016. Only a superhuman effort to counteract years of Republican efforts at voter suppression (particularly aimed at preventing African Americans from voting) heaved Biden over the line.

In his inauguration speech, Biden spoke of the need for unity, of the need to heal a divided nation. However, you can only have a meaningful conversation if there is some common ground concerning the nature of political reality and the meanings of words. If your conversation partner has departed to an alternative epistemological universe, discussion becomes impossible. If this was not obvious before, then events since the election of Biden have made this point superabundantly clear. The event that our dear prime minister deemed appropriate to describe as a 'kerfuffle' (one wonders what his reaction would have been had armed Corbynistas invaded the House of Commons after the 2019 general election, and taken Michael Gove and Sir Graham Brady hostage ?) was an attempted coup, orchestrated by Trump. It is not hyperbole to describe it as such. Yet the Republicans refused to recognise Trump's culpability. Many Republicans, both elected officials and the rank-and-file, still have immense difficulty in conceding that Biden won the election. Apparently, they have also have trouble in acknowledging that Covid-19 is a serious disease, and not the consequence of a conspiracy.

It is inadequate to respond by asserting that this problem can be overcome by revising the filibuster in the Senate, so that Democrats can pass legislation more easily, or that the problem can be solved by admitting Washington DC and Puerto Rico to full statehood. This is a fundamental problem of political legitimacy, of a sort that the United States has not faced since the Civil War. (It is not coincidental that the Republican Party draws much of its support from the South, as the political commentator Kevin Phillips foresaw over fifty years ago in his 'The Emerging Republican Majority' (1969)').

It is sobering to reflect that the reason that the attempted coup was not successful because Trump is so lazy and unfocussed, not because the insurrectionists were not dedicated to pursuing their ultimate aim. They were deadly serious in their aim of intimidating - and worse - elected officials. It is not hard to foresee a situation where a more intelligent, but equally unprincipled, leader (e.g. Mike Pompeo) orchestrates a group of well-organised vigilantes. American history furnishes similar examples, such as the Ku Klux Klan and the private armies which industrialists in the 19th century used as strikebreaking weapons.

(To be continued).