Jon Chait continues to make his case that banning Trump from running based on the XIVth Amendment is a bad idea. I continue to find it pretty unconvincing. He dismisses the argument that the Constitution pretty clearly bans insurrectionist from holding office even while admitting that Trump likely committed insurrection. He weasels around the argument by noting that it's not a slam dunk case that Trump engaged in insurrection even though Chait thinks he did. Well, if you think he did, and then argue that he should be left on the ballot, I have to agree with Ryan Cooper:
What I object to is this pathetic lack of resolve. We are facing an utterly corrupt would-be dictator, who already tried to overthrow the government once, who is plotting his regime consolidation and punishment of his enemies in broad daylight, and these clowns are making his legal arguments for him....The amount of loser, kick-me energy on display here is nigh indescribable.
You can't argue that Trump is a would-be dictator who committed insurrection and would destroy American democracy if re-elected and not reach for every available tool in your toolbox. It's the same bullshit idea that protected Trump in 2021. "You can't prosecute your political opponents." The fuck you can't. If they are serial criminals, you prosecute!
The most sympathetic reading of Chait's case is that banning Trump from the ballot would be sort of undemocratic and should have been done in 2022 or 2023. But this is precisely why the issue waited until now. People like Chait assumed that the Republican Party could never support someone like Trump after 1/6. Chait spend endless time explaining why DeSantis would wrest control of the GOP from Trump. He was catastrophically wrong about that.
Yes, you need to defeat Trumpism as much as you need to defeat Trump, but first things first. Trump himself rests at the center of Trumpism. He took root in the heart of the GOP, because the party was ripe for takeover by an Orban-esque strongman. However, so much of Trump's appeal and liability is tied up in the man himself.
Trump embodies what Max Weber called charismatic legitimacy. He represents an idea (You're losing you country and I alone can save it.) and is the personal embodiment of that idea. Almost every revolutionary leader relies on this charismatic authority to mobilize revolutionary movements. However, every revolution struggles with something called the "routinization of charisma." How do you preserve a revolutionary movement that is embodied in Dear Leader when Dear Leader is gone?
If Trump dropped dead tomorrow, that would not be the end of the threat to American democracy from a GOP that has abandoned all fealty to democratic principles. Trump, however, mobilized a certain segment of the population that had been dormant politically. Absent their Tangerine Jesus, there's no guarantee that Trump's authority transfers to someone else. In fact, that was precisely the fatal flaw at the heart of DeSantis-mania that Chait himself fell victim to.
Trump's unique hold on the GOP is because he won an improbable victory in 2016, when everyone thought he would lose. For Cult 45, that victory signified that he was God's Chosen Vessel, instead of someone who drew an inside straight thanks to latent misogyny. Since that time, the GOP has seen consistent losses in elections (which is why they are embracing authoritarianism), yet the "glory" of 2016 remains (combined with Trump's lies about the subsequent losses). Remove the man and the movement will fracture. Let him run because you're dithering whether it's "insurrection" or "sparkling unrest" and you risk losing everything.
No comments:
Post a Comment