THE GREATEST DEMONSTRATION

10 Nov 2026 By in Politics, Republican extremism, The Party System Tags: , , , , Leave a comment
Senator-elect Dr. Annie Andrews speaks into a microphone at a campaign celebration surrounded by supporters and signs bearing her name.

Our votes can restore and redeem a fallen government. American voters surprised the nation and one another in Tuesday’s midterms, sending scores of Trump’s friends and collaborators down to defeat, and elevating rival Democrats to power. The Democrats picked up control of the US Senate and House. It was a seismic political shift, of a magnitude not seen since the Nixon era. It dramatically redistributed power in a constructive and authentic way. Here are some key impressions of Election Day.

Americans can believe in one another again.  They can believe in the power of their votes, specifically in the power of majorities.  Over the years, an authoritarian strong man has used the powers of the presidency to assail, weaken, and demoralize American citizens.  He struck at their well-being, independence, their natural and political rights.  He intimidated and divided the majority that opposes him, driving many to resignation and despair. He subdued them with a rhetoric of double-speak and lies.  Trump’s voluminous assault on republican government pushed its way into living rooms, phones, and everyday lives, turning the entire political atmosphere gray.  The institutions that citizens used to count on became his tools.  For many long years, citizens have struggled to win a “cold civil war” from which there’s no escape.  In the face of this massive crisis, the political parties and prominent leaders proved unequal to the challenge. For years Americans have wondered, “How will it end?”  Now we know. The great electorate of this nation can change the complexion of its government literally overnight.  Its power is mysterious but majestic, too.

Our elections have integrity.  The mid-terms demonstrated yet again that our state-run election system, so painstakingly developed, beautifully serves the purpose for which it was designed.  While evolving to meet the needs of a modern nation, this process faithfully registers and codifies the people’s will.  Trump’s many-sided assault on the franchise amounts to nothing against this magnificent expression.  His machinations are like a flea on the side of an elephant when the electorate is engaged.  There’s no spinning the incontrovertible rebuke of Trumpism that Americans delivered this week.

Most Americans want the Trump era and attendant abuses of power to end.  Losers this week included a number of Trump’s hand-picked candidates, including the clueless Darline Graham (SC) and the degenerate Ken Paxton (TX).  Also going down to defeat were leading Trump toadies, like election deniers Tom Tiffany (WI) and Andy Biggs (AZ).  Trump’s craven effort to redraw congressional districts to favor his party also backfired.  Across the South and in the Rio Grande Valley, black and brown voters delivered retribution against a president who has inflamed racism by methodically disparaging and demonizing people of color.  These voters turned Texas blue, electing Democrats to the governorship and US Senate—an achievement until lately deemed impossible.  The Guardian finds that dozens of Trump-backed candidates have lost their races as his approval rating drops and his influence dims.

Americans want virtuous, capable, conscientious leaders.  Americans are sick of the chaos and vulgarity of Trump-style politics.  They’re tired of trash-talk, of ungrounded character assassination. They’re sick of “leaders” hitting below the belt, sick of dog whistles.  They’re revulsed by massive campaign spending, especially the ad campaigns that billionaires fund.  They’re turned off by the kinds of sabotage that Vivik Ramaswamy and Haley Stevens employed.  They’re tired of weak-minded people who can’t protect American children from the measles.  The Democrats who won Tuesday are capable, hard-working, and down-to-earth.  They are thoughtful and eloquent.  They deserve to be in office.  They won their seats fair and square, without resorting to wire-pulling, personalities, or lies.

Americans want Congress to do the people’s will.  Trump turned his party and the entire Republican-led Congress into quiescent bodies.  Congress should represent the interests of the states and citizens. It should be the font of law, a deliberative body where new ideas and approaches are introduced and honed.  The presidency exists to carry out Congress’s will, not the reverse.  Congress, though, has lost sight of its mission.  It hasn’t operated as a expressive, co-equal branch of government for many years.  It’s abdicated its Constitutional duties, wasting its time on investigations and dithering as the president uses the executive branch to injure the nation and its citizens.  Regardless of how bad the Supreme Court is, or how lawless the President, the Congress could be writing new laws to counter all this.

When Trump isn’t on the ballot, how much brighter the future seems!  This week treated citizens to a foretaste of the day when the Loud-Mouth-In-Chief is silent, when the bully departs from the “bully pulpit” for good.  When the nation is no longer subject to the firehose of Trump’s rhetoric, when it’s no longer forced to consider the dark propositions that inform MAGA zeitgeist, how much more fair and inspiring our national project seems!  The US faces many knotty problems and has hurt itself considerably.  Yet, absent Trump’s narrative, we can reasonably hope to meet these challenges, while enjoying the unique blessings of American federalism.

The passions v. the interests: after a damaging reign of demagoguery, interest-based politics is ascendent again.  The Trump era shows how one malign spirit can infest and awaken the uglier passions and impulses in a population.  By adhering tirelessly to a trademark brand of verbal and ideological aggression, Trump has created a whole network of institutions, individuals, and clients who favor an agenda that’s immoral and mean and lessens our prestige and security.  Millions of voters remain loyal to him, even though his regime aims at destroying the US as an open and egalitarian civil society.  At last, however, a majority of Americans have tired of this sort of politics, instead demanding action on common material interests, such as mitigating the wealth gap; ending corruption, cronyism, and nepotism; and getting back to what truly benefits citizens, the nation’s interests, and the economy.

The crisis is being resolved through a combination of indwelling patriotism and the rise of new leaders.  Even in times of party gridlock and disfunction, our system of government allows citizens to reassert their limited yet supreme power.  New talents are emerging to channel the people’s energies toward constructive aims. Some of the original elements of our interdependent federal system are still working well.

Our domestic political crisis isn’t over.  Trump is still in office; his loyalists control the military, the Justice Department, domestic administration, and parts of the judiciary.  Trump will not leave the White House unless to go into exile.  He’ll use his remaining time in office to protect himself, his family, his legacy as a world-historical figure, and his wealth. 

Will the Democrats repay the people’s confidence this time?  Or will the party again misinterpret its mandate and go down the same old “progressive” and identity-based rabbit holes?  I hope that the Democrats’ work in Congress will be constructive and restorative, focusing on solid mainstream national interests, such as checking rampant and reckless AI/data center development, recalibrating American activities abroad, creating economic opportunity for citizens, and supporting Ukraine.

Look for a wildly new dynamic to emerge within the Republican Party. Republicans have begun jockeying for position now that their leader has been cut down to size. Already, we’ve seen JD Vance and Donald Trump Jr. distance themselves from Trump’s war in Iran.  The Republican Party’ could go the way of Trump unless it demonstrates its independence from him by disavowing his many missteps and misdeeds.  Expect to see some House and Senate Republicans siding with Democrats on issues of urgent interest to voters, such as resuming crucial forms of aid to Ukraine, reining in ICE, and curtailing Pete Hegseth’s deleterious agenda as secretary of war.

Image: Screenshot of US Senator-Elect Annie Andrews of South Carolina
giving her victory speech on Election Night,
from this source.

Trump “Unites The Right” in the 2020 Campaign

28 Jul 2026 By in Politics Tags: , , , , , ,

This article is part of a series I’m writing about President Trump and how his actions as candidate and incumbent have been “critical” in transforming the Republican party and American politics.  The preceding article covered Trump’s 2016 rise to power and his efforts as president to dictate new political norms from within the federal government. This article describes his aberrant behavior during the 2020 presidential campaign, when he began treating voters as suspicious actors, while using double-speak to open the door to right-wing political violence.

As a first-term president seeking re-election, Trump had reasons to fear defeat. He had just narrowly escaped being found guilty in the Senate for abusing his powers. His unconventional conduct as president had been called out incessantly. Now, in the November election, the millions of Americans who thought he’d crossed the line would have the opportunity to use the power of their votes to get rid of him. Citizens across the country would weigh in on his performance and render a verdict as to whether he should continue in power. Instead of accepting the sovereignty of citizens as paramount, Trump sought to control the election process in response to the “threat” his fellow-citizens posed. By autumn, his willingness to foment violence to remain in power was obvious.

The 2020 presidential campaign unfolded amid these conditions: bellicose rhetoric from the president, civil unrest, a dangerous plague.  Increasingly, the president expressed hostility and resentment toward the nation’s people: toward any American who criticized him, dissented, or was unmanageable or disorderly.  Many of his own administration he forced out.  In a nation based on toleration, Trump was openly intolerant.  COVID vaccines had yet to come out and the disease was still raging, spreading whenever people gathered.  Given the dangers of congregation, public places were deserted, with most Americans avoiding human contact and operating from home.

Under these conditions, the election season was peculiar.  Stumping, rallies, and debates occurred amid bitter wrangling over public-health precautions and the social and economic costs of covid containment. The energy that normally flowed through mass gatherings went into social and mainstream media instead.  The incumbent Trump railed against his own medical authorities, notably Anthony Fauci.  Trump took the side of Americans who resented masking and social-distancing.  To be fair, these and other covid-prevention regulations were onerous. They created hardship, disrupted household economies.  They curtailed essential, everyday activities such as working, shopping, worshipping, running a business, and studying.  In this matter, however, Trump again seized on what would work to his political advantage, rather than selflessly defending government policies that, while inconvenient, were best for the nation and the most humane.  Instead, he denounced life-saving measures as tyranny.

Protests against covid “lockdowns” occurred in several states where high fatalities had prompted strict containment.  April protests in the Michigan state capital of Ann Arbor drew over 20,000 protesters, including armed militias.  On social media, Trump fanned these protests, styling them as a cry for freedom at the expense of political order and majoritarian rule. The libertarian-leaning demonstrations became another node of political unrest in a fractious time. At the same time, the president was indifferent to the high covid rates devastating cities and other areas with mainly “blue” (Democratic) constituencies.

Meanwhile, former vice-president Joe Biden emerged from a field of 26 contenders to sew up the Democratic nomination early on.  Once again, Bernie Sanders was a contender, initially outperforming Biden, as did two other progressive candidates, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg.  Biden, however, secured the support of influential South Carolina congressman, Jim Clyburn, just before that state’s primary.  Clyburn’s support proved pivotal.  As the highest ranking African-American in the US House, Clyburn enhanced Biden’s position with respect to black voters in his state and beyond.  The impact of the alliance between the two men went beyond that, however, influencing Biden’s choice of running-mate (Kamala Harris), tilting the Democratic party toward black progressivism (as expressed in BLM), and arguably locking in what the party’s ideological cast and leadership succession would be in 2024.   By Super Tuesday, Sanders and others had withdrawn from the race, uniting behind Biden in a pitched race to defeat Trump and Trumpism at the polls. 

At the state and county level, the covid pandemic posed special problems for election officials. They were responsible for running the election in ways that honored every eligible citizens’ voting rights.  States implemented and expanded procedures for voting early or by mail, so that voters could exercise their rights without going to the polls.  Some localities authorized the use of ballot drop-boxes, so that voters could return their ballots personally, given that the pandemic-era postal service was understaffed and the mail was slow.  When an early debacle snarled the Iowa caucuses, the need for the most infallible voting procedures possible was driven home.  In the end, the conduct of the 2020 election was highly creditable, thanks to all involved, from the secretaries of state on down to the local election officials who impartially run the polls.

Regardless, Trump endlessly assailed the integrity of the election procedures.  He hadn’t won the popular vote in 2016, so higher Democratic turnout this time could mean his defeat.  Conventional wisdom held that expanding ballot access would work to Democrats’ advantage.  So, he and his surrogates did everything they could to impair and discredit pragmatic covid-related innovations in voting, especially those adopted in swing states and Democratic cities.  It was an unsportsmanlike strategy.  Should Biden win, Trump was poised to claim that Biden’s victory was a hoax, that the people’s choice was somehow suspect and illegitimate.  At bottom, Trump was taking aim at the will of the people and their Constitutional rights. 

Welcoming political militants into mainstream Republicanism was another aspect of Trump’s 2020 campaign.  Trump’s willingness to condone violence against ordinary citizens was evident as early as 2017, when, on August 12, neo-Confederate white nationalists and other “alt-right” groups gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia, to protest the impending removal of a statue memorializing pro-slavery general Robert E. Lee.  This so-called “Unite The Right” rally attracted many members of racist and anti-Semitic white-power groups (including neo-Nazis, Three-Percenters, and the Ku Klux Klan).  Incendiaries such as Richard Spencer, Enrique Tarrio, and Nick Fuentes all took part.  On the eve of the rally, this ragtag army of bigots marched in a torchlight procession, chanting slogans such as “Jews Will Not Replace Us,” “You Will Not Replace Us,” and “White Lives Matter.”  The next day saw the groups return, some armed with clubs and riot shields, while a diverse array of counter-demonstrators (including church leaders, BLM activists, and civil rights advocates) also gathered.  The event turned deadly, with a neo-Nazi protestor, James A. Fields, Jr., ramming his car into counter-protesters as they were leaving the event, wounding eighteen people and killing a young woman, Heather Heyer.

After the protest, Trump equated the two sides’ actions without excoriating those who had transgressed the bounds of legal protest to commit violent crimes.  He eventually settled on a very fuzzy vision of events, blandly asserting that there were “some very fine people on both sides.”  Violating long-standing norms and the laws of civil society as articulated in the Bill of Rights, Trump instead signaled his acceptance of militant hate groups, as long as they were working in support of his side.

In the months before the 2020 election, Trump’s hospitable attitude toward the “right kind” of political violence became more pronounced.  He ignored that fact that all such violence was, and is, illegal and unconstitutional.  As president, his sworn duty lay in upholding the rights of all citizens and defending principles of self-government.  These, Trump neglected.  After all, they conflicted with his reelection, his overriding goal.  This personal aim was far dearer to him than the rights of others or the onerous limits the Constitution imposed.  Trump became ever more obdurate about his absolute right to power, even as it became obvious that millions of American voters, perhaps a majority, wanted to see Biden in the presidency.

Trump and his associates Roger Stone and Rudy Guiliani began cultivating friendly relationships with white supremacists, notably Enrique Tarrio, who led the Proud Boys.  Tarrio took part in the Unite the Right rally: he advocated violence against blacks and denied the epic horrors of the Holocaust.  His group attained widespread name recognition during a live presidential debate in September 2020, when moderator Chris Wallace asked Trump if he planned to distance himself from far-right hate groups: would he ask them to “stand down”?  Trump refused to criticize the Proud Boys, whose name was put forward as an example.  Instead, Trump insisted that antifa groups were the real problem and asked the Proud Boys to “Stand back and stand by.”  Right-wing groups were elated, with members of the Proud Boys taking Trump’s callout as an endorsement of their violent proclivities.

From this, proponents of alt-right violence learned that, though they might suffer arrest, they had nothing to fear from the president: Trump was neutral on their brand of political violence and perhaps even an ally.  These groups gained more visibility as a consequence, becoming a recognized but problematic element in mainstream politics.  Tarrio would end up in jail after his group vandalized a black church in Washington DC, but his criminality hardly mattered. His group and others like it were uniquely committed to Trump’s re-election, fully identifying his success with theirs.

Another unusual form of pro-Trump agitation re-emerged on social media in September 2020: a thought campaign known as “Stop The Steal.”  This was a propaganda campaign that political operative Roger Stone began piloting in 2016.  It was a social-media campaign aimed at fomenting mass opposition and unrest in the event that Trump’s rival won.  In 2020, “Stop the Steal” became far more salient, both because it caught on with Trump’s base and primed them for action in case he lost.  Millions of Americans came to believe that the election process was corrupt and unreliable, and that Democratic malfeasance was somehow to blame if Donald Trump lost.   The prospect of a Trump loss became inadmissible to those whose minds were infected with “Stop The Steal.”  They were primed to distrust the truth of election results.  This lack of faith was like a dagger in the heart of a self-governing nation.  “Stop The Steal” birthed an unfounded hostility toward electoral majorities at odds with the nation’s central principle that “the people rule.”

Amid a dangerous plague and a racially and politically charged atmosphere, the American people at last cast their votes.  They voted in person, fed their ballots into drop boxes, put them in the mail.  Some voted early from their covid hide-outs; others stood in long lines on November 3rd to vote in booths the old-fashioned way.  Turnout was massive.  Citizens were eager to assert their rights and make their voices heard.  The US Census Bureau estimates that 66.8% of all eligible voters cast ballots in the election, a level of participation not seen in many years—in decades, really.  In all, over 158.4 million votes were cast in the presidential contest, the most ever in American history.

Because of the enormous volume of ballots and the laws governing the counting of mail-in ballots, state returns trickled in over several days.  After several days of suspense, the Associated Press and other reliable news organizations ascertained on the morning of Saturday, November 7, that Biden had won. Conservative outlet Fox News called the race for Biden when results from Pennsylvania and Nevada showed him winning those hotly contested states. In the end, Biden scored a 4.4 percent advantage over Trump in the popular vote, garnering 81,282,632 votes to Trump’s 74,223,234 (a difference of over seven million votes).  Likewise, in the Electoral College, Biden was the clear victor, ending up with 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232. He prevailed there by a 74-vote margin.  It was hardly a squeaker. Despite all the obstacles and Trump’s extraordinary efforts to intimidate citizens and discredit the election process, the citizens had spoken and Biden had won.

Respectfully submitted,
Susan M. Barsy, Ph.D.

Image: Screenshot of alt-right demonstrators opposing the removal
of a statue of defeated Confederate leader Robert E. Lee
at the “Unite The Right” Rally in Charlottesville, VA in 2017,
(footage from this source).

Trump’s Ascent: The Election of 2016

15 Jul 2026 By in Politics Tags: , , , ,
Donald Trump against the worn innards of the Capitol.

This article is part of a series about President Trump and how the elections of 2016 and 2024 have been “critical,” in the sense of transforming the Republican party and the political system.  Although Trump’s ideology was iconoclastic from the beginning, his sway over his own party and federalism itself subsequently grew more complete.  His non-consecutive presidential victories in 2016 and 2024, and even his defeat in 2020, mark various stages of this ascendancy, illuminating nuances of critical-elections theory. Unquestionably, Trump instigated and presided over a great change in American politics.  Were his victorious elections in 2016 and 2024 both “critical” elections, however?  Was one more “critical” than the other?  And, if so, why?

Trump entered politics as a moderate independent.  A business tycoon, he claimed to be one of the best people, but he was also a shyster with a barely hidden history of dubious financial dealings.  He had mastered television as star of The Apprentice, a reality show that expanded his understanding and skill when it came to engaging with and leading ordinary people.

Trump entered presidential politics in July 2015, joining a crowded field of Republicans contending for the nomination as President Obama’s second term came to an end.  Trump had never held public office.  He had never formally identified as a Republican.  Like Bernie Sanders, a lifelong independent who chose to affiliate as a Democrat in order to run for president in this race, Trump was an outsider and an interloper, hoping to take over the Republican party from inside.

Trump proved a tireless campaigner.  He was very garrulous but also a very disciplined communicator.  He had three major positions, which he expressed in a bold and controversial fashion.  They were very easy to understand: he wanted to build a southern border wall and make Mexico pay for it; he wanted to stop China from taking advantage of the US, and he wanted to restore the prestige of being an American citizen.  Trump repeatedly asserted in various ways 1) that the United States was a mediocre nation that he would restore; 2) that the US and its citizens were victims with major grievances in an unfair world.  Trump positioned himself as the savior of a beaten nation, which needed him to “Make American Great Again.”  These assertions were controversial, because, objectively, the US was and is wealthier and more powerful than other nations in the world.

Trump beat sixteen Republican rivals to secure his party’s nomination.  During the primary, he spoke about his opponents and other types of people he disliked in an openly crude and ruthless way.  He said demeaning things about women, people of color, and individuals with disabilities.  He mocked people.  He made fun of his opponents’ physical features, their spouses, their way of being. He groundlessly cast doubt on the legitimacy of President Obama’s electoral successes, questioning again and again whether the latter was truly a US citizen.  In short, he attacked people verbally in a way that was un-Christian, intolerant, and unfair.  Trump routinely violated the norms of civility that American leaders had relied on for centuries to maintain cordial working relationships in ideologically fraught times.  Bad behavior became Trump’s stock in trade, because, he discovered, it kept him in the news.

Trump understood the electoral map.  Scorning gatekeepers, he took his message to the people.  He went out courting the votes of people the Democratic Party found it hard to reach.  The people that his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, called “deplorables,” began turning out for Trump’s rallies in large numbers.  Trump created loyalty with voters by positioning himself as their champion against foreign powers and establishment elites, whether in the Democratic Party or his own.

As for Clinton, she, too, was a good campaigner; she was popular with women and minorities, with college-educated voters, and with the moderate Democratic base.  She led a somewhat fractious party, however, with many Democrats having voted for the far more progressive Bernie Sanders in the primaries.  Needing to retain these votes in the general election, Hillary was poorly positioned to court the vast pool of unaffiliated voters who might go for Trump instead.  Then-president Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, and vice-president Biden went out to stump for Clinton in critical “swing” states like Florida and Pennsylvania.

Presidential election results, 2016, by County (Courtesy Wikimedia commons)

It was no use.  Trump prevailed.  Clinton won the popular vote, but he won the combination of states needed to secure a majority in the electoral college, capturing 304 votes, well above the 270 required. Trump captured Florida and Pennsylvania, as well as all the southern and Plains states, leading to the red and blue map Americans are familiar with today.  Clinton’s support (in blue) was concentrated in the northeast and urban parts of the country, whereas Trump (in red) cleaned up in the vast regions that were rural or more sparsely populated.  It was a stunning loss for Clinton, who tearfully conceded late the following day.

Even as his star ascended, Trump began making false assertions about his own election and the election process in general.  Eking out a narrow victory over Clinton, he claimed he’d won in a huge landslide. This claim was false. He twisted facts to deny her greater popularity at the ballot box.  In the debates, Trump had refused to commit to accepting the election’s results, though these were an expression of the people’s will.

In short, Trump embraced what came to be known as “election denial,” a chimerical doctrine antithetical to our entire system of representative democracy.  He has since consistently spouted misinformation that slights the people’s sovereignty and citizens’ Constitutional power to choose who will occupy the presidency.  This posture has gravely lessened the stability of Constitutional federalism.

In 2016, Trump proved the viability of his signature ideas; but, overall, he had to make do with divided government.  The extent of his popularity within his own party in Congress remained unclear.  In his first term, Trump had a conventional Cabinet and was initially intent on conforming outwardly to the norms of Constitutional government.  He did not achieve his campaign objectives but always had reasons. Even the covid epidemic, which killed a million-plus Americans, he treated in an offhand way, resisting preventive measures and demeaning the nation’s leading doctors and scientists.  This was an expression of the anti-intellectualism central to Trump’s philosophy.

In 2019, the House of Representatives impeached Trump on the grounds that he had improperly withheld military aid to Ukraine in an effort to coerce Ukrainian president Volodymir Zelenskyy to dig up dirt damaging to Trump’s chief domestic rival, Joseph Biden.  The Senate acquitted Trump of the impeachment charges after a lengthy trial.  The vote fell along party lines, with only one Republican, Mitt Romney, averring that President Trump had committed an abuse of power in seeking a quid pro quo in exchange for foreign aid.

Significant popular unrest roiled the end of Trump’s first term.  The police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25 spawned rioting, looting, property destruction, and open conflict with police in many communities.  The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, dating from George Zimmerman’s 2013 acquittal for the murder of Treyvon Martin, shifted into a higher gear, mobilizing massive protests across the country and internationally, involving millions of people.  Many of these demonstrations were peaceful, but others were profoundly disruptive, paralyzing the normal life of cities.  The protracted protests disrupted transit, destroyed businesses, and provided cover for unrelated lawlessness and crime.  Despite the sympathy many Americans felt for the cause of racial justice, the disorder engendered was regrettable.  It bred cynicism and aversion to the movement in some quarters.

Meanwhile, in Portland, Oregon, the protests that Floyd’s death triggered morphed into an entrenched semi-siege of the city center that lasted over a year and included vandalism, sporadic street battles with law enforcement, and the arrival of heavily armed federal forces to protect federal property.  Many of the most committed protesters were young and white, with grievances that went beyond racial injustice or police brutality.

Trump took a hard line.  Notably, he never acknowledged the righteous demand for true racial equality and justice that motivated the protests.  He made no distinction between troublemakers and citizens exercising their Constitutional rights of assembly and free speech.   In Portland, he focused on the role of the Antifa movement (a leftist, anti-fascist anti-Trump organization), decrying its use of violence and threatening to designate it as a domestic terrorist organization (while ignoring or even sanctioning the overtly militarized tactics of far-right political groups). Moreover, Trump seized on riots in major cities as an opportunity to criticize and wrangle with local officials, whom he viewed as despicable adversaries because they were, in the main, Democrats.

When the capital was the site of a major BLM demonstration, Trump allowed Secret Service to whisk him off to an underground bunker for his safety, betraying cowardice.  Then, to demonstrate his readiness to use the armed forces against American citizens, he had Lafayette Square cleared of protesters, then paraded across it with a military detail that included the nation’s top military officer, the Joint Chief of Staff, General Mark Milley.  Having crossed the square, Trump posed in front of St John’s Episcopal Church with a Bible, apparently signifying that his status as president enjoyed divine sanction of some kind.  These were forays into an authoritarianism that Trump would continue to rely on in coming months and years.

The Republican Party underwent a sea change during Trump’s first administration, as he sidelined, ostracized, and repelled many prominent figures; made problematic appointments; and endorsed unknowns who were controversial and/or under-qualified.  Some political stars set or were eclipsed; others rose. And some, meteorically, did both!  Paul Ryan, John Boehner, Rex Tillerson, H. R. McMaster, Jeff Flake, Mike Pence, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Jeff Sessions, Chris Christie: Trump impacted the careers and images of these, and many other, leading lights.  In addition, the never-Trump movement that began in 2015 accelerated and gained traction, with figures like Christie Todd Whitman and George Conway encouraging fellow Republicans to weaken Trump through attrition. Meanwhile, in the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell kept Republicans united behind Trump on key votes, including on impeachment and Supreme Court nominees.  So even as Republican opposition increased, Trump’s control over the party also grew.

Of all Trump’s idiosyncratic characteristics, his reliance on lying, misinformation, and other authoritarian practices are most difficult to trace: they’re the most difficult to follow back to their source, to account for, explain. Were these his own invention? Did he read the classics of authoritarianism for inspiration? Did others coach him, providing him with a strategy for beating citizens and political rivals into submission? Or was it instinct? Many observers claimed early on that Trump was a puppet of the Russian government, that he owed his solvency to Russian patronage, and that a weird partiality to Russia was a trait that a number of his early advisors, particularly Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort, shared. Regardless of the details, however, we can say that, as president, Trump largely disregarded the model of conduct established by his predecessors in the White House, instead hewing to a “strongman” model anathema to Constitutional federalism. His conception of his own singular importance as a world-historical figure was a particularly dangerous feature of his mindset, one hostile to the very continuance of a self-governing polity.

Trump’s 2016 presidential victory exemplified the dynamic power of personality and ideas to redefine American politics. In 2016, however, Trump was just one figure among many striving for the presidential nomination in the Republican Party.  Even after Trump won nomination and became president, he was just one of many powerful figures in government, and there was a real question (as there is with every president) as to what kind of executive he would be. Where would he lead his party, and what success would he have in implementing his signature policies?

Trump fought ferociously to redefine presidential power, dominate his fellow Republicans, and hold onto political power by all available means. He hewed to these objectives even after losing the 2020 presidential election and leaving office in disgrace following the 2021 Capitol insurrection, ultimately running again and prevailing in the election of 2024.  Throughout this span of years, he faced strenuous opposition from various quarters, but this only intensified his jealous convictions, which, as others accepted them or simply became inured to them, became everyday features of American politics and thought.

Respectfully submitted,
Susan M. Barsy, Ph.D.

Continue reading: Peculiar Aspects of the 2020 Presidential Campaign

The House That Independence Built

4 Jul 2026 By in Special days Tags: , , , , , 2 Comments
"The Shooting of Major Pitcairn by the Slave Salem" (courtesy of the NYPL).

The Declaration was a piece of paper. It was one verbose representation among many: a manifesto issued to impart a single, noble meaning to the nasty, inchoate program the American colonists had already staked everything on. They had already begun violently opposing unwarranted repression. They had already fostered an interstate dialogue. They had already begun working in concert across distances. They had already taken up arms, formed a congress, organized a military.

The elite group of people who signed the Declaration were descendants of empire. They were creatures of hierarchy who understood that political survival depended on collaboration and being as shrewd and sophisticated as the rulers they wanted to free themselves from.

The Declaration told the world about the King’s threats against Americans, the top-down edicts that grieved them, the customary freedoms the Crown and Parliament were bent on taking away. The Declaration drew a line against what was intolerable. It was written by white men who did not want to be reduced to the level of slaves. Positively, the Declaration defined an ideal of natural rights that, it asserted, no government had the authority to take away.

The Declaration passed judgment on the colonists’ real status while envisioning an ideal state toward which they promised to strive. The Declaration was in the form of a conventional petition. It wasn’t a petition, though. It was a path of action that its signers and the people they represented were already working toward and committed to.

We would be justified in seeing that piece of paper, the Declaration, as along the lines of a powerful op-ed. In itself, it was “a nothing-burger”: flimsy, inert, inconsequent. It was up to its adherents, then and now, to make reality correspond. An independent nation composed of free self-governing people could not come into being without consensus and compromise.

Without leadership and some degree of popular assent, some voluntary buy-in, independence would have remained chimerical, unattainable. Independence could not flourish without the nasty tradeoffs of provisioning and financing a military, without the hierarchy, organization, and internal discipline it took to win battles against an imperial power. Independence was dependent on common defense and collective action, which meant, in human terms, that it could not come into being without internal conflict, without the drama of hurt feelings, blighted ambition, unusual talents, and egos soaring high. To gain their liberty, Americans had to fudge on ideological purity; they had to practice toleration toward one another, even when that toleration was a corrupt bargain displeasing to God.

The desire to be free and self-governing is a powerful motivating force, as we see in the case of the Ukrainians. Their struggle against Russia offers a living parallel to what our revolutionary forebears endured for the sake of this indwelling desire. Our own fight for independence was equally unlikely. It was a miserable, messy slog to beat bad odds. Our course was littered with slimy bargains, epic failures, embarrassing gaffes, botched opportunities. Nonetheless, Americans kept it together long enough to prevail. They triumphed over the British by staying in the field and clinging to their goal without intermission for eight uncertain years.

Their pursuit of independence was never innocent, it was never as plain and pure as what they put down in the Declaration. However, the house that Independence built was one belonging to its inhabitants alone. What remains to each generation is the grueling, gargantuan task of doing better than they.

Image: from this source.

That Time When Pennsylvania Avenue Met Sunset Boulevard

30 Jun 2026 By in Politics Tags: , , , , , , ,

Two years have passed, but what the nation lived through during the final days of President Biden’s 2024 re-election bid still haunts the collective consciousness. How Biden and his inner circle then behaved revealed something very unseemly about the Democratic establishment.  Who can forget seeing the president, spewing nonsense during a live debate, wrapped in a cluelessness that ruled out his becoming the Democratic nominee?

Yet, for four long weeks after that debacle, Biden held out, defying every form of authority within his party. A parade of Democratic officials entreated him to bow out of the race, in vain.  Millions of voters watched helplessly and with sinking hearts, as Biden hewed to his own interests at the expense of theirs.  His reluctance to relinquish his ambition for the sake of the nation left many Americans lastingly betrayed, for it exposed something deeply undemocratic in the Democratic Party.  Where we might have hoped to see a humble deference to the needs of the nation, self-interest reigned.

The peculiar forces that ended up shaping the nation’s destiny bore an uncanny resemblance to William Wyler’s 1950 gothic masterpiece, Sunset Boulevard.  Gloria Swanson plays a faded movie star, Norma Desmond, who’s a total has-been, a relic of the silent-screen era, living in seclusion in a big ol’ house. She’s a recluse, and a terribly deluded one, who believes the public still loves her and that Hollywood is clamoring for her return to the screen.  Ministering to her is her ex-husband, Max, reduced to the ignominious status of a manservant, who stokes Norma’s delusions out of misguided love.  He feeds her false information and soothes her ego, vigilantly protecting her from any hint of the truth: the unflattering, ego-shattering truth about her inconsequence and bleak prospects in the outside world.

William Holden plays a broke young writer, Joe Gillis, who stumbles into Desmond’s hermetic theater and tries to go along with her to get what he needs.  He plays into her dangerous fantasy, thinking it’s harmless, and hoping to use her glamour to shore up his own precarious position in Hollywood.  But Gilles becomes fatally enmeshed with Desmond; he can’t escape. The Venus fly-trap on Sunset Boulevard is deadly.  When Gilles attacks Norma with the truth she becomes enraged, and Max, her faithful defender, shoots Gillis dead rather than let him flee.  With Joe’s corpse floating face down in her swimming pool, Norma glides down the stairs for her famous “close-up,” and a police squad hauls her off to where she truly belongs.

Sunset Boulevard captures the essence of the bizarre political drama that unfolded at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in the pivotal weeks following Biden’s collapse.  Instead of bowing out, the president forged ahead as if everything were fine.  His staff pushed him back onto the stage, telling him what to say and where to stand.  His unfitness was irrelevant, because a small group of insiders decided to perpetuate his delusions and shield him from the “intrusion” of reality.  While the rest of us masticated over the truth, Biden’s camp peddled a false narrative and pushed him ahead.

The small circle around Biden didn’t represent the public or a political party.  The handlers, the spouse, and the campaign manager were hangers-on who owed their status to Biden’s high position.  The First Family ignored the citizens’ primacy.  Living and working in the White House was comfy. Remaining there was a functional necessity for the incumbents, outweighing the needs of the nation or any other noble consideration.  Instead of regarding Biden as a Democratic standard-bearer who could be replaced, his loyalists behaved as though his delusion were true: that he, and he alone, could save the nation from Trump, that he alone had the talents and abilities to see it through.

The voting public had to watch helplessly, until a movie star, George Clooney, interjected his “authority,” sounded the alarm about Biden’s decrepitude, and finally broke the spell.  Biden belatedly withdrew, upending the customary nomination process, and leaving those of us who wanted to save the nation from Trump to fend for ourselves.  Biden’s feckless conduct placed Trump in a superior position, leaving the Democrats leaderless and in disarray at a critical time. Far from promoting the general welfare, Biden left the US more vulnerable to destruction than ever before.

Since then, little has been done to mitigate the widespread disillusionment this grotesque charade caused.  The Democratic Party has shown itself incapable of compelling obedience its principles.  It has yet to call out Biden or acknowledge what his behavior cost the nation. Nor did the Party insist on a democratic process in choosing a successor.  To this day, the Democratic National Committee has shied away from candidly admitting what went wrong: witness its ludicrous “autopsy report.”  The DNC has yet to delegate meaningful power back to the rank and file.

Until the structural problems of the Democratic Party are acknowledged, anti-party feeling will continue to run high. This in turn will dim the prospects of the American republic. The body of the electorate floats face down in the pool.

Images: screenshots from Sunset Boulevard.