After Trump

 Yglesias does one of those fucking things that he does, where he looks at Trumpist politics as somehow being normal. Trump is sui generis. He is a creature of tabloids and reality TV that exists in direct defiance of the actual way politics as supposed to work. He lies with every breath that he takes, and we are supposed to take his utterances on policy as somehow relevant? 

Compare that analysis with Elliott Morris, who noted back in the spring that opposing Trump's immigration brutality WAS good politics, even as Yglesias said you shouldn't "raise the salience of an issue that benefits Trump." First, many missed at the time that Trump's "immigration" polling was soft, even if his "border security" numbers were and remain strong. 

All of this goes back to Josh Marshall's dictum that "all power is unitary." Opposing Trump EVERYWHERE, degrades his power EVERYWHERE. Yes, you risk losing message discipline, but we've already reached a breaking point with the public. As Ray Kroc said, "When your opponent is drowning, stick a hose in his mouth." 

Trump is cruel, depraved. In fact, his egregious tweet about Rob and Michelle Reiner is SO over the top, that even his usual defenders are walking away from it and calling him out. That was a common refrain from people like my cousin during his first term: "I like him, I just wish he wouldn't tweet so much." They don't want to be exposed to the actual cruelty. My cousin isn't evil, she just wants to believe in the strong man sent by Jesus to make the world safe and cozy for her. When he vomits forth his hateful bile, she knits her brow and wishes he could be more disciplined.

But it's the lack of discipline that is ultimately the point. Trump violates every norm we have. He has a scandal a week that would have sunk any of his predecessors. 

That, however, is the point; that is his strength. 

Trump is the disrupter. The bully on your side. JD Vance can't pull that off. Ron DeSantis failed at it. They both may be sociopaths or at least cyphers with no core convictions, but they aren't as viscerally stupid and evil as Trump, and that means that their cruelty arises from calculation, not impulse and fails to thrill the herd.