Look, let’s just take a quick look at our 45th President. Donald John Trump actually cuts rather a comical figure. A spoiled, pampered little brat that started out on third base and marketed himself as having hit a triple. He Squandered his way through two wives, four hotel-casinos, and the majority of his inheritance, and even stopped to trying to screw his siblings out of their share by having himself named executor of the estate. And marketed himself ruthlessly as a winner.
By the time that 2016 rolled around, Trump was mostly a comic figure. But he had a secret weapon. Thanks to NBC, Trump had 13 years of universal television coverage as the ultimate, steely eyed, hard assed executive of New York. And it was enough.
But Trump had spent years studying and cultivating what was to be his base, and he made the most of it. He was an early birther, taking advantage of the GOP’s resistance to a black President. And in his public utterances, he continued to sew the seeds of white grievance, and fear of the others. And he rode that message to the White House.
But see, that’s the problem. The message itself was toxic to the vast majority of Americans. The protests against his very existence on the planet started the day after his inauguration, and never really stopped. His toxic self cost the GOP the House in 2018, and then the White House and ultimately the Senate in 2020. But it didn’t matter.
Because it was never about Trump, it was always about the message!
And even after Trump lost on November 3rd, Trump’s supporters were more than willing to converge on Washington on January 6th, not necessarily because of Trump, but because his message gave them free rein to live out their dark fantasies. And now, they see the GOP as that vessel that will allow them to continue to live out their dreams.
Let me remind you. Adolf Hitler blew his brains out in an underground bunker of the Chancellery in April of 1945. And yet, 76 years later, Nazism is a thriving counter culture, even in the United states. The battle is no longer about Trump, we vanquished him. The fight now is against Trumpism. And that one is going to b e a lot harder one to tackle.