Why Trump Survives

Why on Earth do we continue allowing a convicted felon, narcissist, sociopath and serial liar to serve as president of our rapidly failing republic?

Before offering my theory, I invite stipulation to several notions:

1. Most members of Congress are reasonably well educated: 30% in the House have JDs, more than half in the Senate have JDs. Nearly all Senators and Representatives are college graduates and 2/3 to 3/4 have post-graduate degrees.

1. Following from #1, it seems fair to assume that a majority of members recognize that the current president is unfit for office and not capable of thoughtfully discharging the duties of his office.

In January 2021, legislative luminaries, including such MAGA stalwarts as Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Nancy Grace and many others, sharply criticized the president’s actions in inciting an insurrection. They soon changed their tunes like stoned karaoke singers. Their current blindness is clearly willful.

Since the president’s reelection, all Republicans have been in lockstep, except for the occasional stumble out of line when the consequences seem benign.

Reasons offered for this willful blindness include:

• The threat of being “primaried” or suffering a blast from the president’s foul social media sewage pipe.

• Fear of erosion of support from the festering mob of Trump sycophants back home.

• Peer pressure from like-mindless colleagues in their legislative body.

• Deep convictions about parts of the MAGA agenda, despite the unfortunate cretin at the helm.

• All of the above.

“All of the above” is probably correct, but “Deep convictions . . .” binds the Republican legislators, their colleagues and the festering mob back home in a way that bears further scrutiny.

Many Republicans are unhappy with tariffs, prices, foreign adventures, cosplaying cabinet members (picture Pistol Pete Hegseth or Kristi Noem) blowing up small boats and the more extreme actions of ICE agents and other government thugs. The legislators all know the truth of January 6th. Most were there and were scared witless.

So what are the deep convictions that bind them together?

After a prelude longer than Wagner’s Ring Cycle, here’s my theory of the case.

Our country is divided into two amorphous groups:

Those who aspire to, or are content to, live in a multi-racial, multi-cultural society; and those who neither aspire to nor are content to live in such a society.

The resistance to a multi-racial, multi-cultural society is a permanent feature of our history, from our genocidal founding, through slavery and Jim Crow, internment, segregation, redlining, demonization of immigrants, gated communities . . .

Although Republican policy does not always appear explicitly racist, the racism can be easily found in the impacts of those policies. The straps to be pulled are almost always on Black folks’s boots.

The crescendo of resistance to multi-racial and multi-cultural values has increased in direct proportion to the perceived threat posed by a looming majority-minority.

This is accompanied by resentment of the many supposed advantages offered to “the other,”whether through affirmative action, DEI programs or any initiative or attitude considered too “woke.”

The more sophisticated resisters will deny racism through “some of my best friends . . .” or judiciously avoiding association with the cruder, more explicit bigots in the white nationalism or white supremacy realms.

But they are all fearful of losing control and cannot imagine in living in a world where they are in the minority. Most Americans have never, by circumstance or choice, lived or worked in an environment where social, political, legal or cultural power was held by “the other.”

Those who claim tolerance - a word I dislike intensely because tolerating others is mighty condescending - may live for a while in a multi-racial community, but white flight is their response when the balance starts to tip the wrong way.

“Silent majority” is a term of political art from the Nixon days, describing the mostly white folks who didn’t directly confront anti-war protestors, civil rights activists or gay people, but despised them nonetheless.

Now the silent majority is the vast white middle, comprised of people who are too polite to storm the Capitol, fly a “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, or taunt trans folks in the super market.

But their anger at all forms of “wokeness” and their tolerance of the useful idiot at the helm of state trace to the fear of losing the hegemonic control that straight white men have enjoyed for all of our history.

Even if they dislike him and disagree with some or many policies, they sure as hell aren’t going to vote for any candidates they perceive as a threat to their white majority “American” way of life.

Everything - deportations, border closings, shredding of programs and policies that seek equity - is a function of protecting the group that does not want to live in a multi-racial, multi-cultural society.

It really is as simple as that.