Finally, the pervasive tendency among nominally anti-MAGA leaders to accommodate Trumpism in power and cling to a treacherous idea of “normalcy” is also rooted in foundational myths that shape the collective imaginary of liberal America, in particular. We may be decades removed from the heyday of the so-called “liberal consensus” of the post-war era, that shared understanding among the country’s elite that America is fundamentally good, the institutions essentially healthy, and the U.S. inexorably on its way to overcoming whatever vestigial problems there might still be – but such ideas of exceptional goodness are still powerful today. They often go hand in hand with a mythical tale of American democracy being exceptionally stable. Never mind that, empirically speaking, multiracial democracy has existed for only about 60s years in this country and has been hotly contested at all times: What could possibly happen to America’s supposedly “old, consolidated” democracy? A fundamentally healthy, functioning, consolidated democracy cannot, in this imagination, be brought down by an authoritarian threat rising within its midst. So, either the system is not healthy – or the Trumpist regime is not an acute threat to the survival of American democracy. The latter is a much more comfortable proposition.
Mentions Donald Trump
Ideologically, the Claremont Institute is the home of West Coast Straussianism, a term pointing to a specific school of thought on the Right that goes back to political philosopher Leo Strauss. His disciple Harry Jaffa, a famous Lincoln scholar and one of the most influential conservative intellectuals particularly in the middle decades of the twentieth century, is a key figure in the West Coast Straussian intellectual tradition. It was Jaffa’s students who founded the Claremont Institute in the late 1970s.
West Coast Straussians are obsessed with the Founding – and the idea that America is good because the Framers based the country on certain natural rights and timeless laws of nature, enshrining these eternal laws and morals in the country’s founding documents. In this interpretation, progressivism is the key enemy: A relativistic project of adapting laws and morals over time, thereby alienating America from the timeless essence which it once embodied. This, to West Coast Straussians, puts progressivism in the same category as fascism or communism – ideologies that seek to remake man and the world in defiance of the natural order through totalitarian government intervention. That is what Vought invokes here: When “the Left” started to “modernize” the constitutional order, they were in fact destroying all that was good and noble about America – they were deviating from the “natural order” itself.
Just mind-blowing.
Let’s be blunt. The United States has become two nations occupying the same country. When pressed, or in private, many would now agree. Fewer are willing to take the next step and accept that most people living in the United States today—certainly more than half—are not Americans in any meaningful sense of the term.
I don’t just mean the millions of illegal immigrants. Obviously, those foreigners who have bypassed the regular process for entering our country, and probably will never assimilate to our language and culture, are—politically as well as legally—aliens. I’m really referring to the many native-born people—some of whose families have been here since the Mayflower—who may technically be citizens of the United States but are no longer (if they ever were) Americans. They do not believe in, live by, or even like the principles, traditions, and ideals that until recently defined America as a nation and as a people. It is not obvious what we should call these citizen-aliens, these non-American Americans; but they are something else.
What about those who do consider themselves Americans? By and large, I am referring to the 75 million people who voted in the last election against the senile figurehead of a party that stands for mob violence, ruthless censorship, and racial grievances, not to mention bureaucratic despotism. Regardless of Trump’s obvious flaws, preferring his re-election was not a difficult choice for these voters. In fact—leaving aside the Republican never-Trumpers and some squeamish centrists—it was not a difficult choice for either side. Both Right and Left know where they stand today… and it is not together. Not anymore.
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Practically speaking, there is almost nothing left to conserve. What is actually required now is a recovery, or even a refounding, of America as it was long and originally understood but which now exists only in the hearts and minds of a minority of citizens.
This recognition that the original America is more or less gone sets the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy apart from almost everyone else on the Right. Paradoxically, the organization that has been uniquely devoted to understanding and teaching the principles of the American founding now sees with special clarity why “conserving” that legacy is a dead end. Overturning the existing post-American order, and re-establishing America’s ancient principles in practice, is a sort of counter-revolution, and the only road forward.
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America, as an identity or political movement, might need to carry on without the United States. […] In the meantime, give up on the idea that “conservatives” have anything useful to say. Accept the fact that what we need is a counter-revolution.
Many have argued that the United States’ two major political parties have experienced “asymmetric polarization” in recent decades: The Republican Party has moved significantly further to the right than the Democratic Party has moved to the left. The practice of constiÂtutional hardball, this Essay argues, has followed a similar—and causally related—trajectory. Since at least the mid-1990s, Republican officeÂholders have been more likely than their Democratic counterparts to push the constitutional envelope, straining unwritten norms of govÂernance or disrupting established constitutional understandings. Both sides have done these things. But contrary to the apparent assumption of some legal scholars, they have not done so with the same frequency or intensity.
Wait. "The Democratic Party has moved to the left"? When did this happen? Do you mean the Civil Rights Act?
The smug, self-righteous “moral” crusade against Trump stokes the national reality television show that has replaced journalism and politics. It reduces a social, economic and political crisis to the personality of Trump. It refuses to confront and name the corporate forces responsible for our failed democracy. It allows Democratic politicians to blithely ignore their base - 77 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of independents support an arms embargo against Israel. The open collusion with corporate oppression and refusal to heed the desires and needs of the electorate neuters the press and Trump critics. These corporate puppets stand for nothing, other than their own advancement. The lies they tell to working men and women, especially with programs such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), do far more damage than any of the lies uttered by Trump.
Oswald Spengler in “The Decline of the West” predicted that, as Western democracies calcified and died, a class of “monied thugs,” people such as Trump, would replace the traditional political elites. Democracy would become a sham. Hatred would be fostered and fed to the masses to encourage them to tear themselves apart.
The American dream has become an American nightmare.
The social bonds, including jobs that gave working Americans a sense of purpose and stability, that gave them meaning and hope, have been sundered. The stagnation of tens of millions of lives, the realization that it will not be better for their children, the predatory nature of our institutions, including education, health care and prisons, have engendered, along with despair, feelings of powerlessness and humiliation. It has bred loneliness, frustration, anger and a sense of worthlessness.
I have thoughts backed up, many of them, obviously. As election day approached, I found myself thinking more and more about Lakoff, in the context of the New Republicans' ability to convey a narrative about who they are and what they stand for. It's monstrous, but has a kind of coherence. By contrast the Democrats don't have anything like that. As an institution, they are a moral and civil vacuum. They are rightly seen as calculating and untrustworthy.
However I take issue with Duran and Lakoff's assertion that the Democrats were practicing identity politics. If anything they were doing quite the reverse: identity complacency. The Republicans have been wielding identity politics frighteningly effectively.
In 2024, Kamala Harris tried to move to the right to find the mythical “center.” It didn’t work. Moving to the right doesn't get you to the center – because there is no center. When a Democratic politician moves to "the right" during an election, it erodes their authenticity. In fact, such tactics might have demotivated Democratic voters who were disillusioned to see their candidate running as a Republican Lite.
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Moving forward, Democrats must stop making these superficial, last-minute lurches toward Republican ideas. They must frame the case not as left or right, but for the people and the public good. Moving to the right only convinces voters that the right has better ideas. It's a desperate short-term strategy with harmful long-term consequences.
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Especially helpful to Trump were large social media accounts that thrive on engagement from outraged Democrats. As in 2016, Trump’s "opponents" created a parasitic economy in which constant outrage over Trump's every utterance was the name of the game. Again, this was a massive failure – because focusing attention on Trump’s power — even his power to harm — helps Trump. (Don't expect these professional social media hounds to change their tactics. Amplifying Trump is their bread and butter.)
The attacks on Trump managed to help spread his message far and wide. If Democrats and the liberal press had spent less time reacting to Trump, they might have done a lot better job of trumpeting — and trumpeting loudly — their own candidate’s positives.
We are currently getting a terrifying preview of what all this would look like in practice. Trump has never shied away from admitting – from promising – that his mass deportation “will be a bloody story.” And the leaders on the Right are currently doing their best to ensure that there will be blood long before the election.
On September 9, J.D. Vance used his social media to rail against “Haitian illegal immigrants draining social services and generally causing chaos all over Springfield, Ohio.” He added: “Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn't be in this country. Where is our border czar?”
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Over the next few days, Vance kept doubling down. On September 10, he claimed a child had been murdered by “a Haitian immigrant who had no right to be here.” The senator from Ohio did not care that the child’s parents begged him to stop using their boy, who was killed in a car accident, to demonize immigrants.
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This vile propaganda has had its desired effect. Already on September 12, City Hall, schools, and the DMV in Springfield had to be evacuated because of bomb threats from people raging against the Haitian immigrants. Acts of vandalism against the Haitian community followed. More threats against elementary and middle schools as well as against public officials on September 13. On September 14 and 15, hospitals had to be evacuated – so did universities, as someone threatened to shoot members of the Haitian community on campus. Ohio State Troopers now sweep every building in every school in Springfield Ohio, every morning before the start of classes, looking for explosives, because the bomb threats keep coming. Meanwhile, neo-Nazis are marching through town – the Proud Boys, and a group called Blood Tribe. Life in Springfield, Ohio upended. All based on a lie.
One of the public health doctors that I focus on is a young woman named Alison Berry who was the public health officer for Clallam County. She was effective and smart. She came to grips with the local pandemic. When the state reopened for business, she noticed that there were these huge spikes in infections and that the spikes in infections were concentrated around bars and restaurants. And so she came up with this idea to impose a temporary vaccine mandate to sit indoors at a restaurant or a bar. Very rapidly the infection rates went down. It was a public health success, but it aroused a tremendous local backlash. Because of social media, the opponents were able to coordinate with people all over the world. And so Alison Berry, this anonymous, local public health official, suddenly was getting death threats from 10,000 miles away. You had the local anger. And then you had it amplified on bigger channels like Fox News. And then you had it amplified even more on social media. This is a toxic environment. Unless we get a handle on these technologies, unless we learn to use social media more responsibly, we're heading into a dark period where rumor replaces fact and that makes democracy extremely hard to function.
Wow; this guy knows the US Right. His argument that what unites them is a powerful shared vision of what (indeed who) they do not like is utterly sound. By the time they have worked their way through this list, there will be very little satisfaction to be had from watching them turn on each other.
As the broader public turns its attention to these plans, and most people rightfully react with a mixture of horror and concern, a lot of skepticism remains. What is the role of Trump in all of this: Isn’t it more likely that he is going to mess things up, as he has never shown any interest in meticulous planning nor the necessary discipline to enact an ambitious agenda? The Right may try to present a unified front now, but there are so many groups and factions here, and they don’t all share the same ideas about what America should look like: Shouldn’t we expect a lot of infighting and self-sabotage rather than a well-oiled regime? And most importantly, perhaps, haven’t we been through this once before: Isn’t it more likely we get a repeat of the kind of chaos that was so characteristic of the first Trump presidency?
These questions are important. But too strong a focus on Trump’s erratic nature and the many rivalries on the Right obscures the fact that reactionaries are actually united by the desire to punish their enemies, “take back” the country, and restore the “natural order” of unquestioned white Christian patriarchal rule – a unity that is indicative of a broader realignment on the Right towards an aggressive embrace of state authoritarianism. And those who expect merely more of the same chaos that defined Trump’s presidency tend to overlook the fact that the Right would be operating under much more favorable conditions this time: With a fully Trumpified GOP, a reactionary super-majority on the Supreme Court, and with the omnipresent threat of escalating political violence intimidating anyone who dares to dissent.
Trump world wasn’t ready in 2016. The American Right more generally wasn’t ready – they didn’t have the know-how, the plans, or the personnel to get anywhere close to remaking the nation in accordance with their reactionary vision.
They are determined to not make that mistake again. “Project 2025” is evidence that the Right has concrete plans to take over and transform American government into a machine that serves only two purposes: Exacting revenge on the “woke” enemy – and imposing a minoritarian reactionary vision on society.
As always, the cruelty is the point:
Christian nationalism has provide little in terms of tangible benefits for the the group from which it draws its support, while seeking to erode the rights and status of almost everyone else. The losers under Christian nationalism will be the targets of White reactionary politics. Again, from Perry:
"Religious, racial, and sexual minorities lose as their very existence (not to mention their cultural and political influence) is publicly demonized and perhaps in some cases curtailed. Working class White Americans (even the Christian ones) exchange the possibility of a better economic future for the false promise that some mythical Christian heritage and values will be preserved."
Second, there are some areas where Trump has delivered, such as on abortion access, that provide guidance to what he will do in a second term. Judges appointed by Trump are primed to present to SCOTUS cases that allow them to push the boundaries of Christian nationalist values. More such judges, more cases, offered to a SCOTUS supermajority that no longer feels the need to find a middle ground on these issues.
Third, Trump’s approach to governance will be more sophisticated in a second term. He has a blueprint for governing that bears the imprint of supporters who are open about the goal of imposing Christian nationalist values. This includes familiar areas such as immigration, and education. Trump lawyers committed to a Christian nationalist agenda will operate in concert with their judicial brethren. The Alabama IVF decision rested on an 1872 law. Trump allies plan to leverage the 1873 Comstock Act to prevent the distribution of abortion medication. The1872 Alabama law was about civil lawsuits for wrongful death of children, and the Comstock Act is about the shipping of obscene materials. But sufficiently motivated Christian nationalist lawyers are happy to explain how each law prohibits the use of technologies that would not be invented for a century.