As the Mad Wannabe King spends his final days in office, the world no longer wonders what his fate will be: On December 14, the Electoral College vote confirmed his humiliating defeat at the hands of Joe Biden. When Trump departs the White House on January 20, 2021, he will likely be pursued by creditors and legal authorities alike.
In the much-anticipated sunset of Trump’s failed presidency, some political analysts are concerned that Trumpism – that corrupt brew of hubris, personality cult, faux authoritarianism, hucksterism, xenophobia, populism, and nativism – could continue. While always surrounds anything Trumpian, I believe that Trumpism cannot outlast its progenitor. The bogus doctrine has suffered a series of life-threatening wounds that make its survival highly questionable.
The first life-threatening wound came from Erick Erickson, a conservative evangelical American blogger and radio host, and loyal Trump supporter. In a lengthy Twitter thread produced out of frustration at the unwillingness of Trump’s supporters “to stop blaming everyone else for their loss, and accept the reality of the election results,” Erickson clarifies that, ultimately, the blame for Trump’s defeat rests with Trump. Said, Erickson:
“Maybe…and I know this might just blow your mind…but maybe what if you’ve been lied to the whole time. There is no conspiracy. There is no theft of the election. The President hired highly competent people, but it is him, not them, that is the problem…
[T]o admit you were played, and he lost, and there was no deep state conspiracy or theft of the election would actually make you look bad. So, it’s better to double down on the lies and [B.S.] and blame everyone else …
[F]rom the Trump-appointed A.G. to the Trump-appointed FBI Director to the Trump-appointed CIA Director to various Trump endorsed Governors to the GOP establishment to corporate America, the Carlyle Group, the Rothschilds, the Russians, and the Chinese.”
Erickson’s caution to Trump supporters that Trump has played them to cover up his incompetence must have come as a shock to Team Trump. After all, in early 2019, Erickson posted on his blog that “I will vote for Donald Trump and Mike Pence. They’ve earned my vote.”
Whether or not Erickson’s efforts successfully disabuse his followers of the notion that everything else was the cause of Trump’s defeat, the nature of his criticism dramatically diminishes the chance of Erickson’s supporters would willingly continue to support Trumpism. Given Erickson’s ubiquitous and influential presence in conservative media, this rebuke’s effect was akin to whiplash to Trumpism.
The second life-threatening wound to Trumpism came from Bill Barr, Trump’s recently resigned attorney general. Barr’s statement, “To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election,” cut the heart out of Trump’s ‘I wuz robbed’ voter fraud campaign. Barr’s statement laid waste to any possible belief that Trump’s voter-fraud claims are fact-based and erode any confidence in the progenitor.
Not only did Barr’s denial of voter fraud immediately placed him at odds with Trump’s persistent, baseless claims of voter fraud, it also struck at one of the central tenets of Trumpism – the overarching sense of self-confidence/hubris. It is axiomatic that Trump believes his word is gospel amongst his supporters. However, when the same repudiation – “light on the facts”; “[had] no merit”; demonstrated “no credible or reliable evidence” proving voter fraud – has been rendered by courts in legal decision after decision, the gaping flaws in the Trumpism gospel become glaringly evident.
The third wound – and possibly the most fatal – was dealt to Trumpism by the Supreme Court in a two-part slash and stab knife attack. On December 8, the Court slashed the Trump legal team’s challenge to Pennsylvania’s presidential election results in asserting that the state’s expansion of mail-in voting was illegal, by refusing to hear the case. In one sentence, the Court (including the three justices appointed by Trump) gutted Team Trump’s flawed claim stating, “The application for injunctive relief presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied.”
Still believing that he had a winning argument that just needed to be heard to be appreciated, Trump joined Texas’s suit seeking to overturn the presidential election results in the four states – Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Those states awarded crucial electoral votes to President-elect Joe Biden. In a brief statement, the Supreme Court inflicted an even deeper stab wound by denying Texas’s petition, stating “the State of Texas’s motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied for lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution. Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections. All other pending motions are dismissed as moot.”
As Politico Magazine pointed out, “The Supreme Court’s action is likely the end of the line for Trump’s legal push to reverse his defeat. Dozens of courts at the local, state, and federal level have swatted down his team’s and his allies’ legal efforts to scrap the results of the election, with many judges issuing forceful rejections, noting that the campaign’s arguments relied on conjecture and conspiracy theory.”
If these three life-threatening wounds weren’t sufficient to place Trumpism in intensive care, the fourth wound – the Electoral College’s December 14 affirmation of states’ election results – mandated Trumpism’s placement on life support. The College’s final vote total read 306 electoral votes for Joe Biden, 232 electoral votes for Donald Trump.
Beyond these events, the country’s changing demographics jeopardize Trumpism’s very foundations. White males no longer dominate America’s demographic stage: the population of Millennials (the nation’s largest living adult population) is more educated, more racially, and ethnically diverse than previous generations.
Generation Z, the generation following Millennials, half of whom identify as racial or ethnic minorities – is even more socially and politically liberal-leaning on crucial political issues.
And if that wasn’t enough of a threat to the white foundations of Trumpism to overcome, the U.S. population’s immigrant share is approaching a record high, with 44 million foreign-born people living in the U.S. in 2017 accounting for 13.6% of the population. Hispanics were projected to be the largest racial or ethnic group voting in 2020. None of these demographic projections bode well for the survival of Trumpism.
The death knell for Trumpism will sound its loudest notes when legal charges against Trump began to appear immediately after the end of his presidency. Starting January 21, 2021, Trump faces a plethora of potential litigation: civil suits for defamation, state allegations or indictments for various frauds committed individually or through his companies, and possibly federal charges for tax and bank fraud. The litany of Trump’s legal liabilities is dizzying, which will mean his lawyers will have no time to further the survivability of Trumpism.
And as the floodwaters of litigation overwhelm his attempt to return to private life, Trump’s political supporters will start to move away from being considered believers in Trumpism.
David Graham insightfully points out in The Atlantic Magazine that “It is tempting to say that Sessions and Barr were both Trumpists avant la lettre [before the specified word or concept existed], but their eventual conflicts with him show there was no such thing: Trumpism is a cult of personality, and policy is always an afterthought.”
Trumpism as a cult of personality – a fitting obituary for a failed presidency.
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