Andrew Sullivan engages in a useful exercise that illustrates the danger Trump brings not only to the United States, but to his own supporters particular agenda:
There is merit, at times, to thinking about what might have been. Counterfactual history can help us see what our factual history has actually told us.
So reflect for a second on the campaign of 2016. One Republican candidate channeled the actual grievances and anxieties of many Americans, while the others kept up their zombie politics and economics. One candidate was prepared to say that the Iraq War was a catastrophe, that mass immigration needed to be controlled, that globalized free trade was devastating communities and industries, that we needed serious investment in infrastructure, that Reaganomics was way out of date, and that half the country was stagnating and in crisis.
That was Trump. In many ways, he deserves credit for this wake-up call. And if he had built on this platform and crafted a presidential agenda that might have expanded its appeal and broadened its base, he would be basking in high popularity and be a shoo-in for reelection. If, in a resilient period of growth, his first agenda item had been a major infrastructure bill and he’d combined it with tax relief for the middle and working classes, he could have crafted a new conservative coalition that might have endured. If he could have conceded for a millisecond that he was a newbie and that he would make mistakes, he would have been forgiven for much. A touch of magnanimity would have worked wonders. For that matter, if Trump were to concede, even now, that his phone call with President Zelensky of Ukraine went over the line and he now understands this, we would be in a different world.
But instead …
The two core lessons of the past few years are therefore: (1) Trumpism has a real base of support in the country with needs that must be addressed, and (2) Donald Trump is incapable of doing it and is such an unstable, malignant, destructive narcissist that he threatens our entire system of government.
Perhaps Hillary Clinton’s biggest mistake, in retrospect, wasn’t her failure to campaign in key states, but her use of the word deplorables. As the election proved, there’s a sizable minority of the population with concerns that were not being addressed until Trump came along; Clinton alienated them with that unfortunate word.
But through the election of a strong candidate for Worst President Ever, those voters, his constituents, his base, what I call his cult, have put at risk their entire set of concerns. While some of those concerns have had strong attention over the years, such as opposition to abortion, and were unlikely to be treated by those on the other side in a way satisfactory manner, other issues were unaddressed, such as small farmer concerns, other rural concerns, gay rights, local economic blight, and a general feeling of neglect as to their concerns, while federal actions – no matter how well meaning, how justified – were taken without their approval.
And now Trump, by being an incompetent and even malicious President, puts that set of concerns in peril. Those voters picked someone who lied and lied and lied, and when that got him into office, he just kept on going. For those opposed to Trump, liberal or independent, it’s become something of an obsession: lies, incompetency, corruption. Condemn, condemn, condemn. And it’s important and valid.
But behind that sodden paper-maché wall of oozing pus, there still lie those voters’ concerns. Trump’s successors may be those that successfully address those concerns, whether it be by demonstrating them to be false, or by bringing aid, policy changes, and comfort to those afflicted. All this while finding ways to defuse the political sepsis infused into their blood stream by the malicious emails that are designed to enrage them.
That’s one hell of a mountain to climb.
