Make Awakenings Great Again

The Republican Party after Trump.

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Former President Donald Trump wraps up a rally on January 06, 2024 in Clinton, Iowa. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

From time to time, I think of a comment left by a reader at my old haunt following the 2016 election.

I had assumed Hillary Clinton would win. He, a devout Donald Trump fan, knew with spiritual conviction that his man would prevail. When he turned out to be right, his contempt for my political acumen was incandescent. “You should be retrained as a plumber,” he sneered.

I thought of it again recently, and not just because I’m guilty of having once believed that Ron DeSantis stood a real chance of peeling away Trump’s supporters this cycle. (Maybe I should be retrained as a plumber.)

It came to mind because people like me, as a class, increasingly seem unqualified to do the job of punditry. Following the news closely and knowing a bit of history is no longer enough to understand American politics. We pundits need to be retrained as psychologists.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    “If Trump passed from the scene and a charismatic libertarian-minded conservative emerged—an American Javier Milei, if you like—would Trumpism give way to a Reaganite restoration?”

    One can always dream!

    “Possibly an exorcist.”

    That gave me schadenfreude.

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  2. Jarena

    “If only he’d been about a billion times more charismatic.”

    That math checks out.

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    Xsearnold

    I thought there was a recent shift in Trump supporters from white evangelicals who rarely attended church to white evangelicals who frequently attend church, based on recent polling? Wouldn't this contradict the hypothesis of this article?

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    1. Bobby D

      That makes sense. I would expect church-attending evangelicals to be more supportive of Trump, given the authoritarian nature of evangelical church culture.

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  4. Trichwages

    Nice analysis. Time will tell.

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  5. Bobby D

    In reading the NYT piece, the one disagreement I have is with the notion that Trump changed people. I disagree. I suspect that Trump mainly just revealed who these people were at the core of their being. Trump gave them permission to be themselves.

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    1. Avatar photo
      I Am the Eggman

      Yes. This is also how I like to respond to the saying, "Power corrupts": No, power just gives you an opportunity to show how corrupt you were all along.

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    2. Wes.Bridges

      Some leaders bring out the best. Others....

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  6. Kenyon.Gerbrandt

    The video recording of the confrontation in the US House says it all. One of the unseen insurrectionists can be heard saying that this is civil war and they don’t want bloodshed but there will be more if “this” isn’t resolved. It seems that the faithful have already made up their minds.

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    1. Jackrabbit McQuivers

      But I thought they were tourists?

      Or, according to some commenters on this site, it was just a protest that got out of control

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  7. FreddySez

    Nick writes: "The Trump movement isn’t fundamentally about policy, as the Reagan revolution was. It’s about community, the 'us' in 'us vs. them.'”

    Nick is correct in this, and nothing I'm about to say is a defense of Trump or his movement. But:

    A particular strain of "us vs. them" presidential rhetoric, in which the "them" was not foreign antagonists but other Americans, reached flower with the Obama administration. Rhetorically, President Obama spent his entire time in office in campaign mode, inveighing against certain groups of his fellow citizens. Contrast his habitual "they did... they wrecked... they drove the economy into a ditch..." etc. with President Reagan's "our friends on the other side of the aisle."

    As I note this today, it's just my strong impression based on having been alive and listening for the last eleven presidents. Someday, a graduate student or a computer (likely both) will confirm my impression with a real textual analysis. But I feel certain that President Obama was the father of routinely divisive "other Americans are the enemy" rhetoric.

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    1. PROMETHEUS

      Well, yeah, Obama was very divisive for America.

      For one thing, he was black.

      I don't know if you noticed it, but he definitely was black.

      I hope you noticed it, because frankly, so many people on the right noticed it, that they created a whole movement based on that fact.
      It was called the Tea Party

      Yeah, I now, it was supposed to be against taxes and stuff. Do you think that was something unusual, and new about Republicans? I mean, 90% of their agenda, such as it is, is about cutting taxes.
      The Tea Party was different. It harked back to earlier times. A time when America was different.
      A time when the average American didn't have to face the horror of having some black guy and his family in the White House.
      Besides, Obama could have been ineligible. Aren't black guys ineligible to the Presidency?
      I think he was some kind of Kenyan Moslem. In any case, he was ineligible.

      I understand that he didn't try to bring the government down, and as far as I know, he did not accuse anybody of stealing any elections. but he did talk about groups of people who, let's face it, had brought one of the most spectacular financial disasters in the country's history.
      And as far as I remember, none of them was brought to justice, or lost his position or was fined.
      But millions of people lost financially, and a disproportionate number really lost their lives savings, because the banks gave loans indiscriminately, as they raked in the money.
      And a lot of those people, beyond their percentages, were black.
      So, yeah, I guess Obama talked about that. And it must have been very divisive for a lot of people. I mean, they have some nerve, right? And Obama had some nerve talking about it, right?

      The other thing that Obama did that was very divisive, was that, even after he was elected President, he insisted on staying black.
      I mean, I can understand being black during the election, and wanting to win. But then, he won! What was the point after that?
      But no, he insisted on staying black; not only himself, but his entire family.
      And so, the country was subjected to a black President and a black family in the White House for eight whole years.

      That HAD to be very divisive.

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      1. Avatar photo
        DougCLE

        You seem very obsessed with Obama's race.

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        1. PROMETHEUS

          Not at all;

          I am obsessed by the horrible divisiveness that the first black President caused in all his eight years when he resided in the White House.
          With his black wife.
          And his black children.

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            DougCLE

            “the first black President”
            “With his black wife.”
            “And his black children.”

            Oh, yeah, totally. No obsession there.

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      2. FreddySez

        If you're going to focus on that, I can't stop you. If you're going to characterize the president's critics that way in general terms, you're free to do so.

        You may NOT imprint that on me or what I said.

        I think President Obama was a legally eligible, duly elected, smart, nice guy with whom I disagreed about most things. A little full of himself, but who reaches the presidency without that being true?

        But my observation was about the things *he* chose to say and the ways *he* chose to characterize others. That stands.

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        1. Jackrabbit McQuivers

          It's just not unique in the way you think it is. I have always felt that Republicans held Obama to a standard that they did not hold their own elected officials; critiqued Obama for things they excused, tolerated, or even celebrated in their own politicians.

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      J.R.

      I appreciate the focus on presidential rhetoric you make in your statement, but I'd love to see some actual quotes. Reagan himself wasn't afraid to say Democrats would wreck this, or ruin that, during his campaigns. I think the actual turning point in US political rhetoric, and the era that presaged Trump's disregard for truth, decorum, or shame happened much earlier than Obama.

      I give you a small sampling of Newt Gingrich, 50th Speaker of the House and destroyer of Congressional functions and norms.

      1978: “One of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don’t encourage you to be nasty,” he told the group. “We encourage you to be neat, obedient, and loyal, and faithful, and all those Boy Scout words, which would be great around the campfire but are lousy in politics.”

      1985: Suggested an election recount demanded by Democrats in Indiana was equivalent to Nazi genocide, even going so far as to quote Niemoller.

      1987: “After the first five months of this Congress, I must report to my fellow citizens that this 100th Congress may be the most irresponsible, destructive, corrupt, and unrepresentative Congress of the modern era…In future weeks, I will make a series of speeches outlining the threats of corruption, of communism, and of the left-wing machine which runs the House.”

      1989: “These people are sick,” he says of congressional Democrats. “They are so consumed by their own power, by a Mussolini-like ego, that their willingness to run over normal human beings and to destroy honest institutions is unending.” He also warns that unless the Democrats are stopped, “we may literally see our freedom decay and decline.”

      1990: Published "Language: a Mechanism of Control" which included a list of recommended words for Republican's to consistently use in describing Democrats: sick, pathetic, lie, anti-flag, traitors, radical, corrupt.

      1994: “I think that the mother killing the two children in South Carolina vividly reminds every American how sick the society is getting and how much we need to change things. The only way you get change is to vote Republican.” “People like me are what stand between us and Auschwitz. I see evil all around me every day.”

      2009: Compares the Obama administration to the Chinese Cultural Revolution. “I just have this interesting idea of asking Anita Dunn if this is her idea of a cultural revolution and if she really wishes that she could get Sean Hannity and the other Fox commentators to go to a farm and work the way Mao sent the intellectuals out.”

      2010: Gingrich warns that Obama’s agenda “would mean the end of America as it has been for the last 400 years.”

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      1. Jackrabbit McQuivers

        Do Sarah Palin next.

        We want to talk about rhetorical divisiveness? How about a candidate for Vice President actually telling her supporters that they are "real Americans," and that those who are not her supporters are not. I can't begin to imagine a more divisive approach to politics; I'll go so far as to say it dehumanizes her opponents.

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          Abridge683

          Which has now devolved into Kari Lake who shoed away McCain Republicans as not being her kind of folks. "Get the hell out," I think was the quote.

          So it's Palin but doubled down.

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    3. Brian The 2nd

      The idea that Obama invented divisiveness is just so bizarre to me, but I hear it said all the time from people on the right that it must actually be something people believe. I watched it develop in real time, and looked like nothing other that programming/brainwashing from right wing media. I have always perceived being on the "Them" side in terms of the republican view of Americans in general. I was too young to have made Nixon's enemies list, but I have always been aware of the idea...

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      1. FreddySez

        There's no question divisiveness predated President Obama by a great deal. Nixon's list and behavior were are prime example of that of course, and you can trace it back to the federal period easily.

        I was referring specifically to rhetoric -- the stuff you hear from the podium when the president is acting and speaking in a way he not only accepts, but wants, to define him. As opposed to the sneaky politics.

        My experience is that President Obama was the first one to spend his time in office staring into a camera, or at a rally crowd, directing his language to one faction of Americans as "we" while "othering" another faction of Americans as a "they" who were implicitly not part of his intended audience.

        But as I said, I know that's an impression, and I actually would be curious to see someone put all the texts through an algorithm and test it.

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        1. Jackrabbit McQuivers

          With respect, that seems like an impression that stems a bit from what your partisan bias may have been at the time. When I watch my Duke Blue Devils play, I only notice the fouls that benefit the Tar Heels (and I see *every* one); I never notice the infractions my own side is responsible for.

          Is it possible that you glossed over all the times Reagan, Gingrich, and Sarah Palin divided Americans up into groups?

          Here's one thing I know for certain: conservative media repeatedly hammered Obama for being divisive against cops; while Obama's *actual* speeches went to great care to say he was not anti cop, and that the vast majority of cops are life-saving civil servants. But Fox News never showed those clips, and created the impression that Obama was painting all cops with the same brush he was using on only the dirty cops.

          Is it possible you were the victim of selectively reported quotes, and/or your own bias (as I am with my Duke Blue Devils)

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        2. Brian The 2nd

          I would be curious to see that too. I remember a lot of divisive rhetoric during the Obama admin, but -my- perception is that it was mainly aimed AT him, and projected on him when he never actually said the thing people were upset about. I remember conversations with anti Obama people in political forums where people would retort to something I said with, "yea, but Obama hates white people, farmers, the military, Americans etc." And I would say "when did he say that?" and the reply was "Oh I don't know, but you KNOW he thinks it!", and I would say "No, I don't know that, and neither do you". rinse and repeat, over and over.
          Now I am not saying Obama never said anything divisive, but I would love an example of something he actually said when people assert this.

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          1. Jackrabbit McQuivers

            I wish I had seen this comment; I just made a very similar one in a reply to the same comment.

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          2. FreddySez

            Once again you're correct in your broader observation - but mine was about stuff the president says, not stuff people say about presidents. No question President Obama was on the receiving end of tons.

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  8. Dougrhon

    When I used the word "cult" to describe Trump's following which has taken over the Republican Party I only meant it in its true original sense, a religious movement founded on the veneration of a great prophet/leader.

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    1. Ken Motamed

      "Great"?

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      1. Dougrhon

        Great in the sense of how his followers regard him.

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  9. RGS

    This piece reminded me that, at the time of the Civil War, white Southerners saw slavery not merely as something that should be allowed, but as a great social good -- even a moral cause -- that was their duty to spread across Central America.

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    1. Packmd4

      Yes, it's kind of forgotten today but Southerners actively attempted to spread slavery across Central and South America. William Walker actually succeeding in taking over Nicaragua temporarily in 1856 was one example.

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      1. RGS

        Yes, I've been listening to McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom. The level of approval among white Southerners for these extralegal efforts surprised me. I don't know how much of McPherson's work is dated; if there's been more recent historiography that's useful (ie, NOT Hannah-Jones), I'd be interested.

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    2. Dougrhon

      They came to see it that way in the 1850's. More than anything else THIS is what led to the Civil War. Because it made it impossible for them to support even Stephen Douglas, a man who was neutral on the good or evil of slavery, let alone a Republican dedicated to the ultimate end of slavery.

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  10. Hikingguy

    If we're talking SF, let's not forget "If This Goes On", a Heinlein tale from the 40s about Americans overthrowing a religious tyranny that had been voted into power by religious head cases. The Prophet Incarnate-a Bible thumper named Nehemiah Scudder-made a convert out of a very rich woman who then funded his TV show, and he eventually gathered a big enough following to be elected. Sound kinda familiar? Evangelicals flocking to Trump, anybody?

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