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I think that in reality if elected Trump would probably just spend all day tweeting and failing to implement his promises. However, to many Democrats it is almost as if Trump is a Lovecraftian god the mere mention of whom leads to insanity. Such Democrats view him as some sort of annihilating force the very presence of which in the universe warps and endangers the sane, wholesome building blocks of existence itself. Meanwhile I just see a fat old huckster sociopath who talks a lot of shit but is effectively restrained by checks and balances. Not a savory person, maybe even a rapist, pretty certainly a bad guy, but not some sort of fundamental essential threat to the entire being of American democracy or to sanity.
It is not that I do not believe in evil. But I do find it odd when liberals perceive demonic evil in Trump, yet make excuses for vicious violent criminals (at least, as a class if not always individually) who are enabled by Democrats' soft-on-crime policies.
Would Trump do many harmful things in office? I am sure. Harris would as well. Which one would do more, who knows? I do not see a clear-cut answer to that question. He certainly would be no angel, I am sure of that. But it also seems to me that often, vehement anti-Trump sentiment has little to do with a clear-eyed assessment of the possible harms that he would cause.
What explains the particular mind-shattering power that Trump somehow inflicts on so many of his political opponents? Interestingly, it largely do not seem to be his actual political counterparts among the Democrat elite who view him as an eldritch destroyer of worlds... the Democrat elite may hate him, may despise him, may say that he is a threat to democracy, but I don't think I can remember any time that any of them acted as if he was a threat to one's very psychological foundation. Maybe their power and their close understanding of American politics generally inoculates them against such a reaction.
Lest someone think that I come only to shit on the Democrats, unfortunately no. Would that I actually supported either of the two main parties... my political life would be easier. But the Republicans, too, deserve some questioning on this topic. Republicans' reaction to Bill and Hillary Clinton, at one point, was a sort of precursor to the mental shattering caused by the concept of Trump. Interestingly, despite often being accused of being racist, from what I recall Republicans did not actually react to Obama quite as hysterically as they reacted to the Clintons. Sure, there was a lot of vitriol against Obama, such as Birtherism, but it was probably half as vehement as what was thrown at the Clintons.
Yet even though Republicans were in many ways mind-melted by the Clintons, including to the point that Republican forums back in the day teemed with theories about the Clintons literally being a murderous and pedophilic crime family, I still do not think it quite matches up to the new standards of psychological devastation that Trump has wreaked. That might sound weird, given the murderous pedophile thing, but to me supporters of those theories generally just seem like they are stupid and prone to weird fantasies and LARPs but have always been that way, whereas people who are existentially shattered by Trump seem like they might have been different at one point, but then suddenly Trump appeared in the corner of their reality and traumatically inverted it into some new configuration of dimensions.
Why does Trump have this effect? Is it just that there is a large number of people in this country who fail to agree with me that Trump's chances of becoming a dictator are extremely small, that a man who has most key institutions against him, has the top military brass against him, and lives in a country where the military rank and file are probably not about to try to overthrow civilian authority, has very little chance of ending American democracy?
I am not sure. The idea of Trump being the curtain call on American democracy is certainly one of the main things behind his psychological impact on people, but I have seen plenty of people who seem existentially horrified by him for completely different reasons. Some people seem to be driven out of their wits' ends just by the very fact that Trump is crude and vulgar rather than sounding like an intellectual.
As a Democrat, I hold both views simultaneously. An actually more accurate way to put it for me is: I think he'll probably directly be a threat to democracy if he loses, and probably won't directly be a threat to democracy over the next four years if he wins, but might have already tipped the first domino in a progression that leads to an erosion of democracy and might be able to nudge the next domino (or have his allies do so) based on some of his actions during his next term.
What erosion of democracy do you believe Donald Trump, avatar of your outgroup, to want?
Steelmanning voting concepts, I have observed that my fellow Americans either want:
Accordingly, I refuse to countenance the strawman of “Republicans just want to suppress the legitimate vote” without the flip strawman, “Democrats just want to stuff the ballot box.”
Actually trying to peer into his mind and speculate exactly what he wants is difficult. I think he likes power and I think it's reasonably probable that if he thought he could do it pretty easily, he'd appoint himself president-for-life. If he does want to do that, I don't think he will try to do it, because he knows he couldn't get away with it. But the thought that he might want it is concerning. (But I only think it's "reasonably probable" he does. I'm definitely not certain.)
What I do know is that if Kamala wins, the following will happen, with the following likelihoods, whether or not there are any credible widespread fraud allegations:
That is not good for democracy. The fact that we all know that Trump will declare victory no matter what happens is not good for democracy.
If there's no substantive evidence to support his claims, we all know that Trump is going to say he won when he lost. This is an absurd state of affairs.
I'm just going to repeat this for emphasis. Everyone reading this knows that Trump is going to say "I won" on November 5/6/7, no matter the circumstances. We all know he's going to do this.
People in the intellectual dark web regularly talk about "sense-making", but they seem to (from what I can tell) avoid the fact that if there can no longer be any common agreement on who won an election, democracy is in jeopardy.
I don't think Republicans, or even Trump, necessarily want to suppress the legitimate vote, per se. I do know that Trump is going to say he won if he lost. Basically everyone knows it. That is an erosion of democracy.
Sounds like it would be best for America if Trump wins then, hey?
It depends. The health of the state is so bad at this point that I think keeping the status quo might be worse long term. The government we have, the old guard political class cannot actually solve problems, fix things, or come up with new ideas. FEMA can’t handle hurricane, but Cajun navy and private charities can. The government can’t handle education or health or roads. Trump might well be the shakeup we need. But I’m not sure because the amount of state capacity that will be wasted fighting every single step back will likely make it all worse.
He was president for four years. What did he shake up besides many of the establishment norms that are actually good establishment norms? He complained about the Deep State hampering him from doing things that actually should've been hampered, got nothing done, refused to leave, then had to be dragged out kicking and screaming. I'm not a big fan of Bill Maher but he predicted it all exactly right from the start.
If it were Andrew Yang or Mark Cuban or Michael Bloomberg or maybe even Bernie Sanders (despite me very much not being a socialist), and if they hadn't already been president for four years, I might be willing to lend charity to this overall vibe or maybe even vote that way. But I can't understand the people acting like Trump either was going to be the great disruptor and the great fixer or somehow will be now.
Massive changes to the federal judiciary, leading to a bevy of court cases that advance conservative policies- most notably the overturn of roe vs wade, but also more limits on the regulatory state and a general improvement in gun rights and state's rights.
Can you name a republican you'd put in that category? Because it very much looks like partisan rancor.
I personally expect Trump to muddle through in a way somewhat better for me and mine than Kamala will, certainly not with a major improvement over the status quo but definitely an improvement over Kamala. I'm willing to concede that he's not good for the health of the republic but don't think he's clearly worse than democrats. To steelman the case for Trump making major changes when he didn't last time, he has a better ability to manage personnel and put out executive orders because the right wing institutions are already helping him make them, and has a much more change-happy inner circle with people like Musk and RFK this time.
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