Despite the deep hole he’s in, Donald Trump could still win re-election, as we are constantly reminded. If he loses, some observers warn, there could be considerable trouble, even violent resistance.
But perhaps the biggest problem facing us in the medium-to-long term is
what happens if Trump loses. In particular, what do we do to undo
Trumpism? Not just to counter the destruction Trump has wrought, but the
decades-long preconditions that made his election possible, if not
almost inevitable.
This question was raised recently by Foreign Policy in Focus editor John Feffer.... Feffer’s recent column cited several historical signposts to illuminate the challenge we face — the end of the Confederacy, Nazi Germany and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. All those efforts to rebuild were “flawed in various ways,” he wrote — the first and last most dramatically. But learning from them “might help us avoid repeating the mistakes of history.”
The thrust of Feffer’s argument is twofold: First, that Trump is backed by an amalgam of forces, including “the bulk of conservative civil society,” and even if he's defeated, Trumpism — the particular articulation he's given to those forces — will survive the election and continue to be an existential threat. It “could succeed in finishing what Trump started — disuniting the country and destroying the democratic experiment — unless, that is, the United States were to undergo a thorough de-Trumpification.” In fact, he notes that “a post-election insurrection is not out of the question.”
This question was raised recently by Foreign Policy in Focus editor John Feffer.... Feffer’s recent column cited several historical signposts to illuminate the challenge we face — the end of the Confederacy, Nazi Germany and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. All those efforts to rebuild were “flawed in various ways,” he wrote — the first and last most dramatically. But learning from them “might help us avoid repeating the mistakes of history.”
The thrust of Feffer’s argument is twofold: First, that Trump is backed by an amalgam of forces, including “the bulk of conservative civil society,” and even if he's defeated, Trumpism — the particular articulation he's given to those forces — will survive the election and continue to be an existential threat. It “could succeed in finishing what Trump started — disuniting the country and destroying the democratic experiment — unless, that is, the United States were to undergo a thorough de-Trumpification.” In fact, he notes that “a post-election insurrection is not out of the question.”
No comments:
Post a Comment