by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Trump sure has been acting weird lately. He’s still as deranged and insane as usual, but for some weird reason, he’s embraced getting vaccinated. This is really, really strange because usually Trump plays to his base more than Tay-Tay when she releases a new album.
I struggle to figure out what’s going on.
And, let me be clear, for the time being, Trump has a clear path to win the nomination and ultimately win in 2024. I’m also unwilling to accept that Trump may have “lost his touch.” He remains the Republican Party and the Republican Party is him.
It’s just, two things are happening at once. One is, relative to the fascist, autocratic Republican Party, Trump has done his historical job. He’s stress-tested our political institutions and give a dozen younger, more focused would-be autocrats a blueprint for how to strangle Lady Liberty once and for all. Call this Trump’s “Traditionalist Problem.”
Traditionalists want Trump without Trump. They want all of Trump’s racist, misogynistic autocratic policies…without the deranged parts that make them blanch. Hence why someone like Ron DeSantis is so popular. Traditionalists no longer believe in American democracy. Though, they don’t realize that all but ensures that we either have a civil war or we turn into an autocracy and yours truly gets an ICE bullet in the back of the head. (Sorry, you think I’m being hysterical? Well, fuck you.) Add to this how the Republican Establishment is probably pretty tired of Trump for same reason and, lulz.
Now we come to the other thing going on — Trump continues to have an air of invincibility that hasn’t been tested of late. If someone crossed Trump and…nothing happened…then all those other would-be autocrats would begin a very nasty pitched battle to stake out different parts of the autocratic electorate so they get all the Putin-level goodies instead of Trump. (Mike Pompeo, specifically, knows, I’m sure that if he gets to be president he can become just as powerful as Putin and as wealthy — hence his dramatic weight lost of the last few months.)
As I’ve said before, I think the person with the means, motive and opportunity to fell Trump is Mike Pence. If Pence turned state’s evidence on Trump, he would have a whole lot more of a shot of getting the nomination in, say a brokered convention than he does right now with Trump on top.
But there is one last issue that I can’t figure out any solution to — Trump’s ability to bolt the party if he feels slighted. So everything I’ve laid out could be true but Trump simply starts his own party, nukes the Republican Party and we’re back to facing the rise of fascism.
So, I dunno.