by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I can tell the United States is growing more and more politically unstable because the black hole that is the Trump MAGA grift is growing more and more powerful. It would be so easy to flip a switch, become a MAGA true believer and within four years be drinking cocktails with Stephen Miller.
It really would be that easy.
All you would have to do is sell your soul, lie and actively deny reality. That’s what the grift, once you start to suck its teat, can become all consuming. It’s like blow. You can get quick, easy access to power, fame and cold hard cash but at a cost: your self respect.
I say this because contrary to the populist liberal Twitter conventional wisdom, most MAGA people aren’t ignorant or stupid. They’re pretty fucking racist, misogynistic and greedy, but the vast majority of them are just normal people living their lives. Sure, there are some severe cult members, but there are also a lot of people who feel that MAGA is their only viable political option.
So, I find myself rolling these concepts in my head a lot, struggling to understand how intelligent, educated people are able to invest so much into a lazy ding-bat who is destructive and corrosive. Reading Ezra Klein’s book, “Why We’re Polarized” helped a lot…but I think the book I’m reading about the rise of Hitler probably will help even more once I finish it.
Trump is, and always has been, nothing more than an avatar for some pretty existential problems in the American political system. I really struggle to understand what, specifically, is warping American politics is in such a dark, tragic fashion.
In some respects, Trump is clone of Hitler. And, yet, not quite. Hitler was also an avatar, but he was also a lot more blood thirsty and willing to follow through on his bonkers idea than Trump. Trump thinks he can just rant about what autocratic thing he wants and it will magically be given to him. Hitler realized that there comes a point when you have to start actively hurting people if you’re going to achieve your agenda.
Which raises the question — will we learn even more about the rise of Hitler from who gets to be Der Fuhrer after Trump is physically unable to do it. There are so very many young, ambitious individuals who want to achieve what Trump could not because he’s just an idiot — the end of American liberal democracy and the founding of a Russian-style autocratic managed democracy.
Because that’s what American is careening towards on a macro level. In fact, as I keep saying, the issue could be that what otherwise is inevitable — the United States becoming an autocracy — might not happen because we have a civil war instead because MAGA bungles the transition.
And, yet, there are so many things I can’t game out. I just don’t know. On a macro level, America’s democracy is undead. We’re an autocracy without an autocrat. But I can’t predict the future, so…I guess it’s possible we kind of drift into the future until something happens to change our course?
Stay tuned.
