Trump’s won the nomination for Republican candidate in the 2024 presidential election. People just can’t let go of the addiction, apparently.
I mean, with good reason. Just ask any addict.
Any of them—or anyone who engages in arguably compulsive patterns of behavior, e.g., remaining in a physically abusive relationship, say—in their own mind, it’s perfectly reasonable, rational, logical and smart to continue such behavior, because things most definitely will have to end up the way they want them to in the end.
So, what do these addicts of and abused persons by Trump want?
For Christian conservatives—White, Black, Latino—Trump is the man to sign into law their holy war against heathenism and liberalism. For working class white Americans, Trump is the person to bring back jobs and lower prices at the pump and grocery store (which he is unable to/obviously won’t do). He’s also their voice in railing against the system that failed them. And for the younger, low-conscientious conservative/dark triad personality types, he’s the social media star/influencer they all want to be.
Really, all this illustrates two noteworthy things to me. One, just how afraid conservatives are of forward progress toward…anything, if they desire in such a way to be illuded by Donald Trump, continuing to drink the Kool-Aid, as it were. And two, how out-of-touch many are, to think Trump could get back to White House with the same game plane he had in 2016, only now, 91 counts more felonious and desperate. And that U.S. inflation, high gas prices and lost jobs are Joe Biden’s fault, and not the result of a number of categorical, discrete and uncontrollable circumstances and market pressures that have nothing to do with whatever party holds power in America. Or is even somewhat their own fault.
To those of you who, a gun placed to your temple, would reluctantly admit that you’d rather see a Joe Biden as president than a Donald Trump, and who may possibly actually be genuinely fearful of another Trump presidency—or even those of you who just want the son of a b— back because he’s basically you, except in a higher body mass index (maybe), rub on tan and $5,000 suit—I say this: Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 by more than 3 million votes. He lost in the 2020 by more than 7 million votes. Explain how, in all this time since he’s left office, he’s done anything, anything, to reverse that negative trend by more than the amount of votes needed by the entire American voting populace to make him president again. When you look at it under the same lens as every other country in the world that elects its presidents via a popular vote, the only thing keeping Trump out of office is the votability of his opponent, and all the baggage that opponent brings with them.
This age in American politics will pass—the Age of Trump. It’s important to note now, for how out in the open and sometimes honest it all is, this way of regarding, speaking about, fighting with, smearing, marginalizing and attacking other people. It shows, as if under a microscope, the true warp and weft of the social fabric of the United States of America.
When Trump finally departs, and his loudmouth, confrontational idealogues scatter back into the figurative woodwork, the fabric will still be there. It just won’t be so obvious anymore.
