I don’t have much use for Twitter as a social media but I do visit it to correct right-wing lies. I know it’s probably a waste of time, but it feels good pointing out that no, Trump did not win in 2020, no, Trump is not a modern-day Emmett Till, no, Biden is not senile.
It’s also a fascinating demonstration of what an authoritarian cult Republicans have become (examples here). Whatever Trump says, it’s true, it’s good, it’s wise. Trump considers tax-free tips? Brilliant! The entire working class will vote Republican! Trump proposes replacing the income tax with tariffs? OMG, what an awesome idea! Or cheering that Snopes says Trump did not call neo-Nazis very fine people after the Unite the Right rally (as AR Moxon says, what he said was that very fine people were siding with Nazis which is not an improvement).
This is why anti-vaxxing has made such strides in the US. Trump (who to his credit did kick off the vaccine Warp Speed program that developed them in record time) said covid was no big deal, nothing to worry about; presto, it became an article of faith among right wingers that any attempts to mitigate covid must be wrong (except Trump approved suggestions like bleach or horse paste). And since there’s no reason requirements to vaccinate should be different for covid than, say, measles, flu or polio, all vaccine mandates must be bad. The anti-vax potential in a second Trump term is frightening.
So is the cultists’ enthusiasm for violence against their enemies. Of course, as someone once put it they’ll want violence whether Trump wins (now it’s time to purge the heretics and dissidents!) or loses (they stole our country again!). So let’s make sure he loses.
Trump himself loves being the center of a cult. That’s one of the drivers for being president again: not only can he crush all those lawsuits against him and punish everyone who said he wasn’t the most awesome human being ever, he’ll have the eyes of everyone on him, just like back in his first term.
While I don’t have a handy link, Paul Krugman suggests that’s part of the appeal of tariffs. Not only will replacing income tax with tariffs hurt the poor more than the rich, income tax is a Congressional matter. The Trump tax cuts had to wend through a lot of Congressional negotiation and horse-trading; as I understand it, the executive branch can set tariffs. All the power and attention on Trump. And if anyone wants a break on tariffs they’ll have to crawl to Trump (“These tariffs on Chinese nylon are killing me — I’m asking you on bended knee to waive them. Have I mentioned how much I love staying at your hotels?”).
This kind of thing is a vicious cycle. Republican voters accept Trump’s words as orthodoxy. Republican candidates then run in lockstep with what voters now want in a kind of pre-emptive compliance. when Trump says something that takes flak, then lies he never said it, the party agrees.
While Republicans whine constantly that everything they don’t like is communist, I’ve often thought the party’s rigid doctrine is something Stalin would have approved of. Just as he’d be down with intimidating people into compliance. One of the worst parts of the Trump era is that even if he loses, threats of violence will continue as noted at the link. His administration has loosened the inhibitions, much as he’s reduced inhibitions against being openly misogynist, openly racist or openly Nazi. He didn’t create the urge to roll back the gains for POC and women of the past 70 years but he’s inspired them to be more open, more blatant and put more judges in place who’ll side with them.
It’s a long and ugly fight ahead. I don’t think there’s any choice besides fighting if we want to preserve any sort of decent nation. Because if Trump makes himself dictator as he plans, it’ll get a lot uglier.
