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Since the complaints about Trump are growing ever more shrill in Western Europe as well and there’s an increasing level of liberal doomposting about him online, I think it bears asking the question how exactly average Blue Tribe normies believe Trump’s political ascendancy could have been averted, assuming it wasn’t some inevitable turn of events. I guess most of them agree that Hillary should’ve won in 2016 but was undermined by manufactured scandals and whatnot, but I’d put forth the argument that the US culture war was already getting so heated by that point that liberals weren’t going to secure long-term political gains through such a victory. After all, Congress was still going to be majority(?) Republican, and it was always going to be possible for Trump to win the candidacy in 2020.
If we observe what dissident right-wingers describe as the Gramscian long march through the institutions, it’s fair to conclude that the way for liberalism to win is through incremental but irreversible gains, completed while real and potential enemies remain complacent and clueless, distracted all the time by issues that are ultimately irrelevant. Thus the interest of liberals normally isn’t to escalate the culture war, no matter how good it makes them feel about themselves, but to deescalate it, and win small victories without generating too much public hostility and alienation. There’s a time for humiliating your enemies if that’s what you want, but only when they’re fatally weakened and on the ground.
Concluding from this I’d argue that the time to avert the current mess which horrifies the average liberal was in 2012, either through a) not running an uncalled for and unbecoming smear campaign against Romney, which I guess would have entirely been possible had Obama’s reelection chances not seemed slim, and which wouldn’t have ended up paving the way for someone like Trump b) Romney or someone similar winning the election through not actually being a timid cuck but not being as polarizing as Trump, and ending up governing for one term.
What do you think?
I think this is a little silly. Without wishing to start the endless and pointless 'who started it' conversations, the idea that the Romney 'smear' campaign was some turning point in the breakdown of partisan relations is I think not very likely. After all Republicans ran their own set of vituperative ads in the 2012, including 'small business owners' getting faux-outraged at the stupid 'you didn't build that' (mis-)quotation and that work/welfare ad making a bare-faced lie about welfare reform. At least Bain actually did close that factory in that Obama ad.
I don't think there was ever a realistic off-ramp from where America is now, but it isn't that bad, all things considered. At least Senators don't beat each other near to death these days. Trump is pretty unique and when he sees out his term of dies I think the populist right probably loses its momentum and things start to cool down again, especially when it becomes apparent that all he will have achieved is some tax cuts which outweigh by a factor of a zillion any savings from cutting 'bureaucracy'.
Is it motte rerun week? A blast through the past of all our most frustrating arguments?
No the outrage wasn't fake, that speech was one of the final chinks in the Obama scales over my eyes that had me believing the propaganda that he was a decent guy not into the partisan bullshit. I'm pretty sure someone else has explained this situation better before, but those small business owners were legitimately outraged and rightly so. 'You didn't build that' is not a misquotation, it is precisely what Obama said, and the idea that he was referring to bridges and roads is at best motte and baileying.
Obama's an erudite guy, if he means bridges and roads or infrastructure he is more than capable of saying those words. He said 'that' because it was punchier, encapsulated all he said previously and because it illustrates his position that people who live in a society owe that society in part for their success. It was also a direct and deliberate attack on one of the red tribe's most important values, that through hard work you can get a better life. And those small business owners were correct to view it as the prelude to an attack on small businesses, because that's exactly what happened.
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