Think Of All The Reasons You Detest Trump-- Many Of Them Are The Reasons His Base WIll Never Abandon Him

Peter Wehner served in the administrations of 3 presidents-- Reagan and each Bushs. Now he's a #NeverTrumper and yesterday he did a piece for The Atlantic, Why Trump Supporters Can’t Admit Who He Really Is, concluding that many Republicans believe-- despite "the corruption, chaos, and general insanity that is continuing to engulf the Trump campaign and much of the Republican Party right now"-- that if Biden wins the presidency "America dies," although I think what Wehner meant to say is they fear that if Biden is elected the America of white privilege dies. He wrote that the "chthonic portrait... allows Trump and his followers to tolerate and justify pretty much anything in order to win. And 'anything' turns out to be quite a lot," beyond just "a four-year record of shame, indecency, incompetence, and malfeasance." He painted a stark picture of severe mental illness in the Oval Office as well. "Trump," he concluded, "because of the corruption that seems to pervade every area of his life and his damaged psychological and emotional state, has shown us just how much people will accept in their leaders as a result of 'negative partisanship,' the force that binds parties together less in common purpose than in opposition to a shared opponent." [That pretty much describes the entire 2020 presidential race-- on both sides, I'm afraid to say.]

In an interview by CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick yesterday, John Bolton warned that Trump's inability to think strategically, is the blame for the severity of the pandemic in America and he warned that if Trump is reelected it could-- he really meant would but was unable to say it-- get worse.

Bolton said that during his tenure, “In many cases, the president came to decisions in the national security space that I agreed with.” “But he did it not because of the merits of the argument in favor of a particular policy, but because of the fear of the political blowback he would get domestically if he went in a different direction,” said Bolton.

He said that if Trump is re-elected, “that political guardrail is, if it’s not eliminated entirely, it’s certainly minimized.”

“And so I think the possibility for erratic decisions centered on what Trump perceives as his own personal good fortune increases and the political pressure to move in other directions decreases,” Bolton said.

Andrew Sullivan may not have been watching, but he noted yesterday that Trump is a metastasizing cancer and urged his readers to vote for Biden as quickly as possible. He wrote that "the complete loss of any moral authority the United States might have once had, along with the collapse of a system of alliances that rallied liberal democracies against foul tyrants for decades, are the consequence" of having elected a man sympathetic to authoritarians to the presidency... Gone is "the kind of basic moral clarity that the West once tried to advance, even if we often failed, and has now been sacrificed tout court for one wannabe tyrant’s depraved, delusional psyche... He has delegitimized capitalism by his cronyism, corruption, and indifference to dangerously high levels of inequality. He has tainted conservatism indelibly as riddled with racism, xenophobia, paranoia, misogyny, and derangement. Every hoary stereotype leveled against the right for decades has been given credence by the GOP’s support for this monster of a human being."

The only way out of this spiral is an unlikely figure, Joe Biden. An old-school moderate representing a party fast moving leftward, he is, quite simply, the least worst we’ve got. I’m worried the far left will eat his lunch in office, but that is a less pressing worry than the potential destabilization of the entire system if Trump wins in November. The potential for spiraling unrest in a Trump second term could prompt the dictatorial nightmare many of us have been worried about for years.

Biden is not perfect. He’s too old. But he understands our democratic system; he loves this country and has a grasp of the Constitution. He’s trusted by African-American voters who gave him the nomination, and has not alienated white voters in the middle who loathed Hillary Clinton. He is not deranged; he is not lacking in basic human empathy; and he does not treat all his opponents as enemies.

Some Democrats mock his vow to restore a semblance of dialogue with some Republicans. And I understand their position. It is not without reason. But I reject it. If Trump is defeated, and a modicum of reason and decorum returns, and the embers of liberal democracy are not completely extinguished, we have a chance to rebuild the republic. But it may be our last one.

CNN analyst Stephen Collinson is seeing a Trump "close to full derailment." So this isn't full derailment, just close to it? This is going to be a scary couple of months! "Trump," he predicted, "will ignite a new uproar soon enough. It's clearer than ever that his platform for this election is his own wild behavior that animates his hyperbolic claim that a Democratic presidency would see the suburbs torched by rioters-- not the statesmanlike script choreographed at the RNC. No President in modern history has gone into a reelection race warning that the process of choosing a government that is the bedrock of American democracy is illegitimate. Trump's conduct risks a full-on post-election constitutional crisis."

[W]hile Trump's constantly disruptive behavior and refusal to play the role of a traditional president horrifies Beltway elites, it's exactly what makes him attractive to supporters who long ago soured on conventional politicians. The more he trolls the media, the more his base and his conservative media cheerleaders love it. The question is whether a President who looked every day for four years like he's waging an endless GOP primary campaign can secure a path to victory without broadening his base.