Donald J. Trump 

Donald J. Trump ran for president in 2016 promising to build the wall (between Mexico and the U.S.) and to bar Muslim immigrants to the United States. This man, two of whose three wives were recent immigrants to the U.S., did not begin his campaign by stressing nativism. However, whenever he said, 'build the wall,' those in attendance at his rallies cheered, and this Zelig-like candidate molded himself to their will. Personally, whenever I heard 'build the wall,' I wondered, 'what, they don't have ladders in Mexico?' The wall, I suppose, or such small sections of it as were actually built, was intended as more of a symbolic statement of his constituency's dislike of foreigners, than as a practical barrier to their entry. The promised, but blatantly unconstitutional 'Muslim ban,' was in its turn milded down to a temporary ban on entry from certain terrorism-prone nations.

According to the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, an insurrectionist is not eligible to hold public office:

So much for any prospect of my voting for Mr. Trump, should he run again. I did not vote for him in 2016, fearing he would deliver on his promised assault against the First Amendment rights of Muslim Americans, but rather wrote in a candidate. In 2020, alarmed by the high standing of an avowedly socialist candidate in the Democratic primaries, I did vote for Mr. Trump. I had no illusions about Mr. Trump's character as revealed by his business practices, his multiple bankruptcies, or his self-confessed personal behavior on the Access Hollywood tape, but holding my nose, I voted for someone I perceived as the lesser of two evils. Upon watching the abortive insurrection of January 6th unfold on TV, I deeply regretted doing even that much. It's not a good idea to encourage this man, bent on turning the U.S. into a third-world Banana Republic where the losing candidate in an election declares the vote count invalid and unleashes a mob to take what the voters would not willingly give.

The Good

On the plus side in evaluating Mr. Trump's one-term presidency is his commitment to nominating pro-life Supreme Court justices. This is a long-standing promise of Republican platform statements, but sadly it was not acted on very consistently by Mr. Trump's Republican predecessors. In the case of the Bushes, elder and younger, it may be they were influenced by their spouses' pro-abortion views. Bible-believing Christians ought to be pro-life:

Thanks to Mr. Trump's Supreme Court appointments, Roe vs. Wade has been overturned and abortion thrown back to the States, where it can be decided by democratic procedure like any other contested issue. Mr. Trump, whatever his personal views on the topic may be, made a promise to a particular constituency, in exchange for their votes, and delivered on it. As it turned out, taking this issue out of the realm of personal conviction and placing it into the arena of old-fashioned political horse-trading was the key to making forward progress. Evangelicals, however defined, represent a minority of the electorate; they cannot, by themselves, elect a president, but they ought to be able to achieve a cherished political goal like overturning Roe vs. Wade if they are disciplined enough to vote on that issue. And so it has turned out, praise God.

Another good thing about Mr. Trump is that he was not a war-starter. He did not share the starry-eyed idealism of certain of his Republican predecessors, that military invasion can be a wonderful way to improve the world. Hopefully those who come after, seeing the futility of the militarist world-improvement project in Afghanistan and elsewhere, can successfully restrain the impulse.

Another good thing Mr. Trump accomplished was expediting the development of the vaccines against COVID-19, a disease which appeared during his presidency. His leadership in the struggle against this disease was admittedly inconsistent; at times he appeared to be waging war against his own administration, trying to discredit the mitigation strategies his own people were pushing. Mr. Trump was elected president with no prior experience in elected office at any level. What becomes second nature to any office-holder, of scaling down whatever demands are made of you, was not his first response to the demands of the public health people. Having leaned over too far toward compliance, he then over-corrected the other way. He irresponsibly held political rallies at with no precautions wee put in place, at which, for instance, Herman Cain was infected with COVID-19 and subsequently died. But there were also a few bright spots, for which he deserves credit:

The COVID denialism which has made so much of recent political life into a sick joke began early on, with Rush Limbaugh explaining that COVID-19 was no more than a cold:

"Yeah, I'm dead right on this. The coronavirus is the common cold, folks." (Rush Limbaugh, February 24, 2020).

This claim, that the new disease was actually less deadly, or at a minimum comparably deadly, to familiar diseases like the seasonal flu and the common cold, was repeated endlessly in their internet echo chamber, accompanied often by made-up numbers for the case fatality rate of that disease: '99.98% of people with COVID survive,' etc. Unfortunately their numbers are orders of magnitude off. Now that, as of this writing, 1.1 million Americans have died of COVID-19, you would think they'd be backing off of these patently false claims. To the contrary, they're doubling down, and even running a victory lap, in the apparent belief that the retreat of the COVID-19 story to the inner pages of the newspaper amid waning public interest proves that they were right all along.

Although these ideas did not originate in his administration nor characterized their initial handling of the pandemic, Mr. Trump was happy to capitalize on COVID denialism when it appeared. He became an early convert and held packed, unmasked indoor rallies just because. Herman Cain, a one-time presidential aspirant himself, did not long survive his attendance at one of those events. Are Christians permitted to do evil so that good may come? For instance, to vote for a badly flawed candidate, in expectation that he will do some good?

The Bad

There's the good, and then there's the bad. Mr. Trump reached out to some groups often overlooked in American political life, who responded to his overtures with heart-felt gratitude. His enthusiasts have aptly been called 'a basket of deplorables,' because so they are. While there isn't much in the political domain I would agree with Mrs. Clinton on, it cannot be denied that she hit the nail on the head with her description of Mr. Trump's devoted fans. Neo-Nazis felt unloved before the advent of Mr. Trump; no one in the political realm even wanted their support. The hard-core MAGA crowd are a fairly amoral group; Mr. Trump himself has pointed out that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, and not lose the support of his base. Unlike other Americans, they are not appalled by his remarks in the Planet Hollywood tape. These are people of low character, whatever traditions they may try to appropriate to themselves.

Who are they? For many years, the left marketed class envy to the dispossessed and disinherited. Mr. Trump and his supporters, seeing how successful this approach was for so long, appropriated it wholesale. Members of Mr. Trump's constituency are expected to resent their low socio-economic standing, blaming it on a world where all power and wealth is controlled by a "global elite," who govern for their own miserly advantage. The government is expected to act on their  behalf as liberator, much like the old Communist Party USA, breaking the  chains of oppression that bind Mr. Trump's supporters and putting down the arrogant "elite" to their proper place. Economic resentment and disappointment, and the resulting clarion call for class warfare, is the big draw for this brand of politics.

When the 'Tea Party' came to the fore, a friend of mine began to recite their slogans. These sounded familiar to me, so I sent this friend a copy of a diatribe against the international financiers, with the attribution stripped off, and asked for his comment. He was enthusiastic. I explained that this screed had been written by V.I. Lenin, expecting this would dampen his enthusiasm. It didn't. The new populism is the old Marxism-Leninism. At least it is up until you come to the question of their suggested remedies for their shared diagnosis of society's ills. Here 'tax cuts for the rich' comes in, an oddly malapropos remedy for an old-fashioned 'class warfare' type of diagnosis.

Seeing Mr. Trump's supporters strut their stuff, for instance at the Capitol on January 6th, as they milled about aimlessly, the thought comes unbidden that a meritocracy, which is what conservative Republicans long thought this country was and ought to remain, would end up with just exactly these folks and none other at the bottom of the social pyramid. Like it or not, the old GOP paradigm was the bright hope for an America where the smart and capable would end up well-off, while the slow-witted would end up on the bottom of the pile. Even though the old GOP is dead, it appears that we have at long last attained to what we long desired, meritocracy, or at least approached the goal more closely than ever before. But not everybody is happy. Who doesn't like meritocracy? Dumb people. What a surprise. What is distinctive about this economic system is that dumb people are intended to end up on the bottom.

The United States has of course never been a perfect meritocracy. Preference for one's own offspring with resultant nepotism, preference for particular ethnicities or cultural backgrounds, stood in the way. People hired who they liked— they liked veterans, for example, and no one questioned it. If true meritocracy could be attained, as with all things, there must be winners and losers. Years ago I can recall William F. Buckley's befuddlement when a guest assumed an employer would be hiring the most competent applicant. Wouldn't he hire instead the most charming one he had interviewed, Buckley wondered? There used to be a book about that, "How to Win Friends and Influence People," which everyone back in that bygone era had read, which assumed that the trick to getting hired— or closing the sale, or making the deal— was, evidently, repeating the counter-party's name as often as possible. If people liked you, it didn't matter whether you were competent.

But this changed. One of the unintended consequences of civil rights legislation was to make the U.S. more of a meritocracy than it ever had been previously. If decisions to hire and fire might have to be defended in a court of law, as they well might be under the equal opportunity regime, then they had best be based on quantifiable, objective attributes like standardized test scores, rather than something as nebulous as 'charm.' Of course, the human resources department had never been entirely indifferent to competence, especially in technical fields like engineering. As the casualties of the competence regime drifted downward and coagulated at the bottom, it would seem, they became self-aware and conceptualized themselves as an oppressed class. That is the constituency to which the Republican Party, which used to be in principle opposed to class warfare, caters in the present day. Ayn Rand, I am sure, who bitterly resented the circumstance, which sometimes happens, of dumb, untalented people achieving success in life, would be appalled at what has become of the conservative movement.

It's a different ball-game, to be sure, and a different target demographic. They call it 'populism.' As a surviving voice from a lost world, reader, trust me when I say that Republicans used to be a lot snobbier than they are today. Their present constituency nurture a grievance against their lot in life and see politics as the arena in which to wage class warfare, against the 'elite.' But perhaps class warfare as waged by the intellectually deprived hasn't got quite the bite of the old kind. They willingly believe, it seems, when they are told that the remedy for their distress is more tax cuts for the rich. It's hard to see how people who are this easily led around by the nose will get satisfaction in warfare of any kind.

Their sympathizers paint a dystopian portrait of 'rural America,' from which, they say, opportunity has departed, there having been massive disinvestment in 'fly-over' country. Those responsible are, of course, the nefarious 'global elite,' who control all investment dollars. . .or maybe the Rothschilds. They allege manufacturing has collapsed. This is not true if you look at manufacturing output, which keeps on chugging along. Manufacturing employment, however, has declined. If you look at manufacturing payrolls, they are lower than ever, especially given that the labor movement, which once kept manufacturing pay high, has struggled in recent years under governmental disfavor. But Mr. Trump's constituents don't want to see a reinvigorated labor movement; they are as committed to breaking unions as ever. It appears that American manufacturing has 'collapsed' in much the same way that American agriculture collapsed around the turn of the twentieth century, namely that output increased even as fewer and fewer hands were needed.

When the TV reporters interview Mr. Trump's supporters, not meaning to insult anyone, but they often come across as low-information voters. When they piteously explain how low they rank in the income distribution, the viewer can readily believe it, and is tempted to resort to that circumstance as the explanation for their plight. The depression-like conditions these people report experiencing are very real, but thankfully very, very local: these folks carry their own depression around with them, wherever they go. If memory serves, there was a character in the comic strips who used to carry his personal thunder-cloud with him wherever he went. So the weather report was simple: rain. For him, anyway. That principle applies, not just in the funny papers, but the economists need not search too hard to find out why some people think unemployment is high when it's not. It is for them.

So what is the remedy? Is it, like the Clintons thought, more education, education for everybody? But education is not a rising tide that lifts all boats. At this level of the ability spectrum, it functions more as a filter, blocking these folks' path to advancement more surely than any apartheid-type gateway regulation could do. These folks might begin a course of study, but not complete it successfully. Far from being a gently swelling tide that lifts all boats, education is a tsunami that leaves wreckage in its wake. If anything, it is surprising it took them so long to develop a 'class consciousness,' a recognition and perception of themselves as an oppressed class. On meritocracy, the good things in life are not for them, but are reserved for somebody else.

If access to education is unequal, then making education broadly available is an equalizer. But education itself is no equalizer. Since people's aptitude, their ability to profit from education, differs so widely, it might very well fossilize into the walls of a rigid class distinction. Of course, handing out equal rewards to everyone regardless of productivity is neither fair nor calculated to maximize effort. But how wide the gulf should be between highest and lowest is a legitimate topic for public policy discussion and is responsive to differing policy courses.

In addition to the 'white rural poor,' Mr. Trump panders to constituencies, not only of ill-assorted aggrieved parties of various stripes, but groups of long-standing that people of good will ought to agree would be better left apart, on the outside looking in:

One of the most repugnant scenes from the day Donald Trump's supporters invaded the Capitol was this image of a man carrying a Confederate flag through the building. What does this flag stand for? What were the principles undergirding the secession of the southern states of the Union to form a new nation, the Confederate States of America? The founding principles of this new nation are not for the faint of heart:

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Trump-supporter, attracted attention and puzzlement when she called for a "national divorce." She proposed, in much the same manner as the Southern Secessionists tried, but failed to implement, the dismemberment of the United States of America in the 1860's. She explained, however, that it would be peaceful this time; maybe the Northerners are expected to remember the whupping they took last time? Oh, wait. Meanwhile, without any trace of irony, her congressional web-site describes her thusly: "Marjorie Taylor Green is a mother, successful businesswoman, and Christian nationalist patriot representing Georgia's fourteenth Congressional district in Washington, DC." In what sense are you any sort of "patriot" to a country you want to put in the past tense? A patriot, according the Merriam-Webster, is "one who loves and supports his or her country."

Lovers are, as a rule, disposed to look forward to the continued existence of the object of their affections. Thus, if Merriam-Webster are on the right track, those who propose the dismemberment and demise of the United States of America are not American patriots. They may well be patriotically disposed to one of the as-yet non-existent successor entities they propose to create, but not to the existing country, which they want to put out of business. If you hate a particular country, then you may very well hope for a future which does not include the hated flag. But if you hate the country, why not just say so? Why pretend to be a patriot?

Realizing what the Confederacy was all about, what are these modern-day Confederates thinking? While I don't know the flavor of Neoconfederacy this particular flag-waver subscribes to, believe it or not, there are self-described 'Christians' who champion the cause of the Confederacy. Douglas Wilson, a cult-leader in Moscow, Idaho, is the foremost of their number:

Some cultural observers express surprise when they observe self-described 'Christians' suppressing a yawn when they hear, for instance, that Mr. Trump was ordered by a court to pay five million dollars to E. Jean Carroll for sexually assaulting her. Isn't that a bad thing, according to traditional Christian morality? It is a bad thing, but don't wait for these groups to discover that it is. This Muscovite cult sends speakers to 'Manosphere' events where other participants brag about the number of sexual conquests they have racked up. They simply don't see these matters the way other folks see them.

Cozying up to a well-known, familiar type of bad actor is one thing. But the worst thing Mr. Trump did in his accession to power was that he mainstreamed conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones. From their former outlying spot, marooned somewhere on the periphery of American life, they have come charging in to the heart of American political life. This has not been a good thing. What is wrong with conspiracy theory? It violates a basic Bible principle:

In other words, don't make wild accusations based on nothing but speculation, that you can in no way substantiate with the kind of evidence that would stand up in a court of law. Conspiracy theories like QAnon have taken this bad approach to really insane lengths. The practitioners of this methodology are post-modernist to the core. When they hear a recitation of facts they dislike,— let's say a recitation of the symptoms, prevalence, and virulence of COVID-19,— they label it a 'narrative' and craft their own competing 'narrative.' There are no facts about the world to which they feel they owe allegiance. They simply invent a set of alternative 'facts.' Thus we get a fake epidemic and a stolen election, as easily as just imagining them. You can't have a meaningful political debate between people who inhabit non-intersecting alternative realities.

As noted, meritocracy has its discontents, just as does every other regime. If society agrees that success is to go to the smart and capable, what about the inept folks left behind? I think for some of this stuff, like QAnon and Covid denialism, it's not an accident that it's dumb. That's the whole point. This is a mechanism for tribal initiation and recognition. If you are the kind of person who could be convinced that COVID is a fake disease, a "shamdemic," then you're one of us. We trust you, we welcome you. It's like an IQ test. The people who 'pass' it cannot be overly bright. They understand they've been passed over and left behind, because they have been. Meritocracy despises people like them. Try as they might, they haven't got what it takes, and therefore, to the bottom they go.

Their complaints are, in part, I would myself think, legitimate, and even actionable, though not on the basis of fantasy diagnosis. Why should all the good things in life go to the bright and capable? What is meritocracy but a self-congratulatory prescription that dumb people should be the oppressed class? Perhaps a negative income tax is the answer, perhaps a robust minimum wage. If they end up, at age 50, working at a Wendy's, they will not be looking to overthrow the government if that position, which lives up to their actual capabilities, pays a living wage. Meritocracy has its good points. No doubt Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Steve Jobs should be rewarded for their ingenuity and productivity. But why should the multiplier between their rewards and those of the working man be so large? Does it need to be to that large? Can we get by with a smaller gulf between the highest earners and the lowest, such as we used to have 50  years ago?

Their gullibility can find no bottom. Thus we hear that 99.98% of those who contract COVID-19 recover just fine. That's not true, but it is their truth. Democracy cannot work if a sizeable chunk of the electorate are content to live in a fantasy world. Mr. Trump, whose entry into national political life centered around the poorly-substantiated 'birther' theory about Mr. Obama's origins, did nothing good in this arena, and has come close to embracing QAnon, whose adherents belong in padded cells.

Conservative political thinking used to be pro-Constitution, and many Americans probably assume it still is. The fact is, however, that when you encounter a self-described 'conservative' nowadays, you might find yourself talking to someone who despises the Bill of Rights and takes it for granted that democracy is a bad form of government. In some contemporary 'conservative' circles, monarchy is in, and republicanism is out! What is 'Christian Nationalism,' and should it be classified as a revival of fascism, or is it really and truly 'conservative'? Would it have been a victory for 'conservatism' if the Confederacy had won the Civil War? If so, do we want or need conservatism?

The Ugly

Mr. Trump did some good things in office, and some not so good. The worst thing Mr. Trump did, though, was attempt to hold onto power after losing a popular election. This is not a new strategy. In fact, in the third world, it's fairly common. Sending mobs of angry followers into the streets is one way to hold onto the prize, power at any cost.

America was long known for its peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next, but no more. Another third world habit to be viewed with suspicion is for the new regime to prosecute members of the old regime, which is, likewise, common in the third world and can be a sign of a politicized judiciary. Still, under the rule of law, no one is above the law, and outrageous, determined, and repeated flouting of the law cannot be tolerated. This is why I fervently hope the long arm of the law catches up with Mr. Trump. Far from a disengaged spectator on January 6th, he followed events avidly, and only called off his rag-tag army of goons when their failure was apparent.

If engaging in insurrection is not legal, then directing an insurrection surely cannot be legal either. A low-information crowd milling about aimlessly was not on the cusp of seizing power, but no one who watches the video evidence can doubt that was their purpose. Joanne Chesimard was never on the verge of seizing power either, yet that did not stop prosecutors from alleging that she was trying to overthrow the government. The preposterous excuse that these people were not Trump supporters, but rather Antifa, is just one more conspiracy theory which exceeds credulity to add to the pile. If the foot-soldiers are in jail,— and they are, deservedly so,— then their commander belongs there alongside them. Given his age and apparent medical condition, and his long-established fondness for delay as a legal tactic, I doubt we'll ever see Mr. Trump wearing prison orange, but it would look fitting on him, like he is finally where he belongs, at long last, after decades of minor league grifting, con artistry, and leaving others to clean up after him.

I read recently that the nascent 'No Labels' party had offered Nikki Haley their top ticket spot, but she declined. It's very difficult to launch a third party in this country, but when one major party has suffered a moral collapse so dramatic and complete as has the Republican Party, that's really the only way left to go. We know beyond doubt that Mr. Trump is a person of low character who does not believe in the rule of law. Unfortunately he has attracted a legion of followers of no better character and with no greater respect for the rule of law. They do not choose him reluctantly as the lesser of two evils; the primaries presented a variety of choices, all of which they rejected in favor of their champion. Hopefully the better angels of the American character will prevail.

What does the future hold? Is Trumpism a passing fad, or a new birth of fascism? And who are all these shooters turning up at schools and supermarkets? What is their ideology? Some of them will tell you themselves that, like Tucker Carlson, they are concerned about a plot to replace the white race. . . as, so many years ago, was Robert Lewis Dabney:

Racism is a well-known, sadly familiar feature of American political life. But as recently as World War II, fascism was not, it was perceived as alien and evil, and some elements of Mr. Trump's movement seem to be devolving into full-blown fascism. Instead of seeking to persuade their fellow citizens to follow their line, as we do in a democracy, certain groups are claiming the right to lead the country where the majority do not want to go. There has been a lot of religious weirdness circulating around Trump for years. Who can forget Paula White summoning the angels from Africa to win the 2020 election: ". . .angels are dispatching from African and South America." The familiar Christmas hymn "Angels from the Realms of Glory" might need to be rewritten to, 'Angels from the Sh*thole Countries,' to reflect Mr. Trump's view of the matter. General Mike Flynn gave a talk in which he seemed to be channeling Elizabeth Clare Prophet, a deceased doomsday prophet who was a theosophist. Concerned listeners juxtaposed a 'prophecy' of hers with his speech and posted the resulting mish-mash on Twitter. She said,

"Almighty I AM presence. I am here, O God. And I am the instrument of those sevenfold rays and Archangels." (Elizabeth Clare Prophet, 1984).

General Flynn says,

"We are the instrument of those sevenfold rays and all of your Archangels. All of them." (General Michael Flynn, 2021).

Sevenfold rays? Where are they going with this? Where will they end up? Let's jump off before we get there. They are inventing a new religion, it would seem. Jared, they say, Mr. Trump's son-in-law, is even a Transhumanist. So in a country whose First Amendment prohibits a theocracy, we will end up with a theocracy run by a new religion no one's ever heard of before? Let's not go there.