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What is the steelman for voting for Trump in the primaries?
He's not a true outsider anymore. He's not an unknown quantity. We know his temperament. We know his governance style. What does he provide over Desantis/Haley/Ramaswamy? He didn't build the wall the first time, why would he do it now?
I have some ideas, but they're all terrible once you think about them for ten seconds. I am willing to believe that the median voter is unable to think clearly for ten seconds before being hijacked by monkey-brain, but I'd like to make sure I'm not missing something obvious.
1. Personal Loyalty: This is close to the Richard Hanania theory. Personal loyalty would make sense if Trump was loyal in turn to his supporters, but he isn't. How many of his lawyers have gone to jail? How many orange-blooded Trump fans lost their jobs or got arrested for believing in him too hard on January 6? He could have pardoned these people, but he didn't. Orange Man good because Orange Man good.
2. Perceived Injustice: Yes, Trump has been treated unfairly by the media and the Washington establishment. Lots of people have been. I can understand why this would be seen as a necessary condition (e.g. "nobody liked by the 'elites' could ever be a good president"), but why would this be a sufficient condition? Surely electability and general competence matter more than an extra standard-deviation worth of grievances against the media.
3. Hatred: I'm not talking about "Hate™". I'm talking about a genuine desire to see one's political enemies suffer. It's not even clear to me that Trump would be better at this than other Republican candidates, but I feel I would be missing something if I didn't put it on the list.
Trump represents a pent up peasant and heartland burgher rage in a way that no other GOP politician can.
Yes, they want to “own the libs”, but that’s misses out the most important part. They want Donald Trump to own the libs. Owning the libs is important but not essential. Donald Trump is essential. Better Trump is in power and fails than DeSantis is in power and actually succeeds. This is, in effect, the decision that is being made.
But in a wider sense, American conservatives aren’t serious people. They consider forcing impoverished black single mothers to give birth to more children higher priority than ending mass immigration. That considered ending the tiny amount of GDP sent to Ukraine (tying up a longstanding geopolitical foe for years at the cost of zero American lives) more important than ending affirmative action - which only happened because of a 30-year effort by some autistic Jewish guy who couldn’t let it go. These are people who genuinely abhor the pittance spent on America’s empire when it has been the mission of every great Western civilization to conquer, to expand and to rule other lands and peoples.
They live in an imaginary mid century fantasy that is itself a product of Hollywood. They do not aspire to greatness, personally or collectively. Kevin Williamson was right about Trump, and about his supporters. The libs - if he wins again - will be “owned” well and truly for 4 years, and then simply pick up where they left off. Trump doesn’t understand institutions, but his supporters don’t care. The ‘deep state’ will let him spend 4 years in the AG’s office fighting spurious legal cases against his onetime political foes, and all the while the rest of Washington will tick along as usual.
Who ought we to be conquering if we were appropriately aspirational toward greatness?
I'm all for a peacefully-aggressive expansionist American foreign policy. We should be offering any small, culturally compatible, developed nation an opportunity to join the USA voluntarily with a path to full statehood. Potential targets:
Singapore. English speaking, small, rich, educated, strategically located, with a basically compatible common-law system of government. Singapore has limited natural sovereignty, and so would face relatively little difficulty in adapting to statehood. Would add massively to America's human capital and geographic reach. Would be the natural ambassadors of America to the rest of Asia, while the backing of the USA would permanently secure Singapore's future from covetous neighbors or population decline. A beautiful, genuinely diverse, and intelligent people, a credit to the Nation. Could ultimately foster further expansion into ASEAN countries, Malaysia is already most of the way there with the flag and over 60% of Malaysians are fluent in English.
Cuba. Small, relatively developed, produces disproportionate numbers of doctors and engineers relative to its size. Don't just raise the embargo, eliminate the border, correct the mistakes we made after the Spanish American war and make Cuba a state. Alongside Puerto Rico, and splitting the smaller island territories between them, Cuba would foster further filibustering into Latin America. Cubans are historically a brilliant people, with outsize contributions to arts, music, heroic politics, and science. Cuba developed its own damn Covid vaccine, think what they could do with Capitalism and Capital from the rest of the USA.
Greenland. One of Trump's better ideas. Allows us to surround Canada, a prelude to the inevitable CanadAnschluss. Honestly I have no opinion on Greenlanders, but there aren't that many of them anyway.
Ireland. The ethnic, cultural and linguistic ties are obvious, the most powerful Irishmen in history have all been American Presidents. Ireland's economy is already based on Americna corporations, why not formalize things? Becomes the entrepot to the EU for the USA (how statehood and EU membership and Northern Ireland border issues would be handled are obviously issues, but wouldn't be any more complicated than the British saga in the EU). A lovely people (on the inside) who have plenty to offer the USA in culture and humor.
That would be a good start.
Hah, I've never heard this take before, but it's hilariously fascinating. We are a nation of states after all... why not just drop the pretence and build an empire for real?
The answer is in the question- the "nation of states" isn't used to putting up a united front about anything but the basics (outside of maybe what that year's progressives are busy being angry about, whose power waxes and wanes with time), so that empire tends to be relatively minimalistic.
The only reason to impose empire, at the ground level, is to make a statement to the world that a.) your social policies are obviously bullshit (if they were true the other country would already have adopted them), and b.) you're more interested in enforcing them than you are with what your vassal can do for you resource/economy-wise. All the imported goods get a lot more expensive once a country sends its goons to force those populations to abandon all their old gods and bow down before LGBTesus; you get way more revolts that way (Afghanistan being the most recent) and it's a great way to unify and otherwise motivate your enemies.
Better to just leave them to their own devices and try to impose bits and pieces when you can through things like the Imperial Monetary Fund; this is especially important should you have a nation who sees things the same way (and the Chinese are offering much better terms than the Soviets ever could, International Communism has a higher interest rate than Belt and Road).
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