The Future of Trumpism Post-Trump: Brace Yourselves
Trump-dominated right-wing populism is transforming itself into a militant neo-fascist movement. If the Democrats don't get their act together now, it may be too late.
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In my latest piece in the Washington Monthly, “What Democrats Need to Understand About the Future of a Post-Trump GOP,” I address the future course of American right-wing populism once Trump, 75, leaves the scene. And it doesn’t look good. As Harvard Kennedy School research fellow Jay Ulfelder told me: “I’ve gone from mildly optimistic to mildly pessimistic.” As for myself, call me alarmed. Our Democracy has entered DEFCON-2 status: “Next step to nuclear war.”
Following are key takeaways in my article:
Once Trump leaves the scene whether or not his movement continues hinges on whether the polarized political class can overcome their differences and concretely address the underlying conditions feeding the anger and rage that undergirds Trumpism. Failure to do so could have dire consequences—not excluding civil violence, as we saw on January 6.
The movement will be led by opportunistic politicians in the model of Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Josh Hawley - “polished populism”—Trump’s policies without his personality.
Today’s Republican Party is transforming itself in preparation for a post-Trump world. It will move from a cult of personality to a cult of white nationalist grievance.
Right-wing rallies now focus more on issues of white grievance—opposition to critical race theory, Black Lives Matter, and so on—than on Trump, the man.
Republican pollsters also see at least a modest drift away from Trump. Today’s Republican Party is transforming itself in preparation for a post-Trump world. Again from a cult of personality to a cult of white nationalist grievance.
We are witnessing a dangerous trend toward militancy on the right. Trumpism is transforming right-wing populism into a more aggressive neofascist movement. The Department of Homeland Security warns that potential domestic right-wing violence constitutes “a national threat priority for the United States.”
If this drumbeat toward violence continues, and societal changes are not made, who is to say that America won’t slide into chaos and civil strife similar to Weimar Germany?
The Democrats need to overcome their internecine differences and unite in bringing needed reforms to fruition. If they don’t, we can expect to have to keep fighting against the ravages of Trumpism, even after Trump himself is long gone.
I see parallels to Peronismo in Argentina whereby a charismatic strongman savvily saddled grievance-driven populism for his own benefit and personal power and rode his nation to ruination, the consequences of which Argentinians are still grappling with today. Peronismo lingered in Argentina decades after the autocrat’s death. Donald Trump, in my view, very much channels the mesmerizing malice of Juan Perón. It cannot be accepted as a foregone conclusion that the United States will ultimately escape Argentina’s fate.
Harvard’s Jay Ulfelder told me that the country is facing a “huge risk” in a major segment of its population’s ongoing fascination with Trump-style neo-fascism. An anti-democratic GOP is rejiggering the rules at the state level with the aim of bringing about a “sustained competitive authoritarianism.” They are maneuvering strategically to hold sway in Congress, thereby cementing minority rule for the indefinite future.
The movement is sustainable as long as conditions feed it — underscoring all the more the need for Biden’s legislation to pass to rectify reasons for grievance. Demographics will eventually change power balance but the more power white nationalists acquire, the more conflict and instability we can expect. Violence will most likely take place in red and purple regions, not in heavily blue ones, according to Ulfelder.
In my 2017 essay in Washington Monthly, “Could Germany’s Past Be America’s Future? —What happened to interwar Germany may provide a looking glass into what is now befalling America,” I raised the question: “Will we be witnessing thousands killed in pitched urban warfare? Neo-Nazis emerging from the fringes and into the open light, ranks swollen with new members, coffers fed by shameless plutocrats? A subverted court system, a catatonic Congress, complicit churches? Is the world’s most successful democracy headed for the trash heap of history?” (This essay attracted a lot of attention, including from Charlie Cook {Cook Report} and Bill Moyers.)
Yes, it could happen here.
“I think this movement is, at its core, a reactionary defense of racial, gender-based, and religious privilege, and power,” Ulfelder told me. He said he views these trends as “the death throes of American racial—and, hopefully, religious and sexual—apartheid, a vicious phase we have to pass through to get to the better world on the other side.”
My take as to what lies ahead:
“Donald Trump will be 78 when the next presidential campaign season kicks into high gear. It is an open question as to how long he can reasonably expect to dominate Republican politics. Hovering in the wings to take his place are brazen younger opportunists like Cruz, Hawley, Rubio, Ron DeSantis, and Nikki Haley, who will jump at the chance to take the helm of the MAGA ship. And they have every reason to expect that the movement will continue post-Trump. That is, unless the Democrats can overcome their internecine differences and unite in bringing needed reforms to fruition. If they don’t, we can expect to have to keep fighting against the ravages of Trumpism, even after Trump himself is long gone.”