Republicans Want Power More
If Trump wins, one key reason will be because they know Schmittian politics
Hello,
I’ve been struggling with writing about the election over the last few weeks. I don’t know how many times I can go through the litany of Trump’s menace. I don’t know how many times we can go through his history, both before and after he became a candidate or elected official, of bankruptcy, racism, sexism, greed, sexual assault, conflicts of interest, tax avoidance, impeachments, lawsuits, convictions, his love and jealousy of military dictactorships, and so on. In fact, he has so many scandals that he benefits from both “scandal fatique” and “normalized deviance.” I’ve personally forgotten more of his scandals than most people ever even knew about in to begin with. That’s a problem. A problem for productive conversations, the election and for democracy; but a boon to him.
One of the last few times I did write about this election, on August 24th, I threw in “If I was a betting man, I would say that Trump-Vance still has a slight lead, but I also think that will continue to change in favor of Harris-Walz.” Then, polls started looking more promising for Harris-Walz; now: according to Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin, the odds/chances have effectively flipped. But in all actuality, this is a toss-up and forecasting elections is inherently fraught, especially because of the small-n sample size we have of, if you count presidential elections since modern polling started, 23. I know that a lot of pollsters are correcting for undercounting Trump support in 2016 and 2020, but, man, if they are still off in a way that favors him at all, then he could win in a landslide. But, Harris also faces that prospect: in fact, according to Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin, there is a 40% chance that one of those possibilities will happen.
Soem encouraging signs for Harris/Walz is that some of Trump’s support comes from unreliable or first time voters, such as young men (18-29), or, when asked in a scale of 1-10, those who don’t think think the election is that serious (6). This could dampen his turnout, even slightly.
Ultimately, what helps Republicans is that Republicans are true believers and want power more than non-Republicans. Republicans and their media partners lie with impunity and have rallied around someone who tried to extraconstitutionally entrench power and wanted Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election by not certifying the electoral count vote. This, mind you, is according to Mike Pence himself. Almost every Republican that once correctly understood the unique threat that Trump was are now his biggest supporters, including his pick for vice president, J.D. Vance. That is, except for many who served in his actual cabinet or White house, who are trying to spread to the American public that Trump is “the most dangerous person in the country.”
Republican politicians, shockjocks, newsletter hacks, YouTube hosts, and their think-tank industry friends aren’t afraid of using lies, caricature, and fear to bolster their political coalitions to achieve victory. They also aren’t above taking Russian money to be useful idiots for Putin. The Heritage Foundation is spreading lies about illegal voters, as are so many GOP officials, except for certain secretaries of state or local election officials who still might have some integrity. In the early 1990s, when Pat Buchanan threatened the party, most of the establishment supported Bush Jr, and tried to contain the racist and nationalist movement bubbling up beneath them. Buchanan remained relevant, and even had big media spots as late as 2012, but anti-semitism, open white supremacy, and this hardened nativist nationalism was somewhat on the fringe of the party, at least in terms of elected leaders. But now: they welcome that part of the movement with open arms. Sure, the GOP still has divisions in terms of economics, but this national conservatism movement have proudly taken over the rhetorical landscape laid down by David Duke, Pat Buchanan, Rush Limbaugh, and, even older, Henry Ford.
Republicans have a real “will to power” that is striking to witness. The ends justify the means is built into everything they do. Just look at how they lie about Haitian migrants. Just look at who they are supporting. They also know how to create enemies of entire categories of people. This isn’t because they all studied Carl Schmitt’s The Concept of the Political and his idea of the friend/enemy distinction. But they absolutely yearn for a one-party state led by a strongman who, forget rules, norms, laws, processes, and all of that boring stuff, will rid the country of "the “enemies within,” which, of course, is never them or their family, but “the others.”
This friend/enemy distinction really was mastered and masterly spread by Rush Limbaugh in the 1990s who incessantly preached about the 4 corners of deceit being “Government, Academia, Science, and the Mainstream Media.” And his scapegoating of the most vulnerable people in our country; his racism used towards Barack Obama ensured his hateful legacy will continue to stain our country.
The GOP created their own hermetically-sealed epistemology and world, where the only thing that enters is lies, misunderstandings, hate, and fear. This has been true for a long time. But now I literally never hear one truth from any conservative in conversation. And any link, or whatever, they try to send or pretend to understand is either something totally fake or something totally misunderstood. And, yes, the tools or concepts they use to understand the world are just embarassingly juvenile and, frankly, stupid. Everything you use to counter them is “fake” or part of some deep state cabal. We literally are truly in the culture war but this time it’s more like reality vs delusional fantasy lands. And excuse my rudeness, but, damn, so much is on the line, so wreckless and wanton abandonment of reality is just utterly unacceptable. And, I’m afraid in many supposed “moments of truth” that people happily chose fantasy over reality.
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The three big issues that help the GOP in 2024 is inflation, immigration, and the wars in the Middle East. And it also helps that they are in a cult.
It doesn’t matter that there are things worse than inflation, like 10% unemployment; it doesn’t matter that a decent percentage of the cause of inflation was supply-side shocks and tight labor markets; it also doesn’t matter that Trump’s stated policies would make things worse. The party with the incumbent gets blamed for it, even if other economic metrics, like employment, GDP growth (my quick math has it that GDP growth under Trump, avg. 1.45% vs. Biden’s 3% (even using a lower estimate for 2024 then what it probably will actually be)), stock market growth, income growth, etc. have positively grown since 2020. And MAGA voters are absolutely not interested in empirical analyses, such as this one from the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE):
For immigration, it doesn’t matter that bipartisan immigration reform has failed since 1986, mostly because Republicans refusing to agree to any bills that contain pathways to citizenship for many of those who were brought here as children, through no fault of their own, etc. Immigration is complicated. But, sorry, it’s hard to take MAGA seriously that they actually care about X, Y, and Z. We know why they are drawn towards building a wall and why they support mass deportation. They aren’t all of the suffed readers of Joseph Stiglitz or Bernie Sanders. Holding to the side some of the memes, images, and anecdotal videos and stories they see, that they very much believe, we know why they like Trump on the border and immigration. We know. It’s baked into the very mythos of our country.
And, finally, it doesn’t matter that Trump’s foreign policy was a disaster, or that he cares about Palestinians even less than the Democrats. None of that matters because for Trump’s supporters, it’s all vibes. And for supposed leftists who care about Palestinians who are going to choose to sit this one out, or to vote for Trump, they are almost equally delusional if they think Trump’s admin will care more about the lives of Palestinians than Kamala Harris.
Both parties fail in foreign policy. Over and over again. It’s almost the modus operandi of “the blob”- to fail, destroy countries through high debt obligations and war, get cushy private sector jobs after doing so, and to keep on pushing for U.S hegemony, hell or high water, because ‘Merika. But, even for libertarians who don’t share my values of America’s role in the world, who wrote this book, know that Trump was worse.
In terms of wars, they just like throwing around the talking point that Trump had “no new wars” despite his moves escalating the flashpoints in the Middle East. But, hey, I truly welcome an anti-war rightwing, but one that doesn’t support dictatorships or that totally abandons our allies, only to make the costs harder when, inevitably, the world’s only superpower does choose to intervene later. I want to see an anti-war movement truly emerge in this country. Trump is not your guy. Being bellicose around the world, wrecklessly threatening nuclear war, and welcoming election interference from foreign countries with open arms is not the way to do it. Look to Van Jackson to help you understand what a true working-class foreign policy might look like.
Most of Trump supporters are low-information voters (they actually often don’t know much of the above. When you ask them they admit they don’t read the news, or watch much, or know any details about Trump’s history. And many of them say that they only listen to him, the person, and not anyone else) and many of them are cultists. They believing that he won’t do what he says when they don’t like it; and they believe that the other stuff is just rhetorical flourish to piss off the media and non-Trumpists. (So, in other words, he literally gets away with being a politician that no other politician gets away with; and they like his childish petulance.)
They don’t care what David French says, or what Russell Moore says. And for many Trump supporters, they absolutely have to swallow all of the lies whole to accept someone like him; it’s how they justify it. But adults must be held accountable somehow for their false beliefs and for their support of someone who tried to steal the last election, and if loses, will claim this one was stolen, too, when our liberal democracy is under threat.
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We will know soon enough if Trump and the GOP pulls this off. But in a polarized country, where so many GOP voters exclusively consume partisan propaganda, disinformation, and misinformation, it wouldn’t be surprising if they do. And if they do, it will show the GOP and MAGA that their strategy—their horrifiying, reality-defeating, earth-shaking strategy—worked enough, in enough states to win an EC victory, even while losing the popular vote. It will show that in moments of truth, truth be damned.
Thanks,
Patrick M. Foran
Thanks, Matthew!