A Republic, If You Can Keep It

[ndrosen]

It appears likely, although still not certain, that Joseph Biden will be America’s forty-sixth president, which, whatever his shortcomings, is preferable to the alternative. What is distressing is that the election has been relatively close; progressives, sane and decent conservatives, and of course libertarians, should have joined to reject Donald Trump overwhelmingly. Aside from points of ordinary political disagreement, the man has shown himself to be malicious, utterly dishonest, contemptuous of the Constitution, an ignorant buffoon who refuses to remedy his ignorance, a sexual creep, a crooked and failed businessman, and a security risk.

Nearly half the country, however, still supports him. Roughly speaking, I would classify them as the ignorant, who are either simply uninformed about public affairs, or misinformed by Fox, InfoWars, QAnon, the grifter-in-chief’s own Twitter feed, and other sources of that ilk; the truly deplorable, who more or less realize what’s wrong with Trump, but stand behind him because he’s their Big Daddy, and he owns the libs; and the Republican adults who know better, but refuse to risk being voted out of office, or accept the short-term defeats for their party which would ensue if it took a stand against the demagogue. These people are unlikely to vanish any time soon; even with Trump out of office, perhaps prosecuted, or perhaps dead or non-functional from another stroke, they will be fodder for another Trump-like demagogue, and the next one may be smarter.

We need something like the GOP to act as a check on the Democrats, and I don’t see the Libertarian Party expanding to be the choice of 40% or more of the population in the next few years. The country is likely to be divided between a fiscally irresponsible semi-Socialist party and a fiscally irresponsible semi-Fascist party, each opposed to at least some of the essential liberties of the people. Meanwhile, we will probably have to deal with a skyrocketing national debt, a rising China, and other real problems.

We have somehow endured various crises before, despite venal and unwise politicians, large segments of the public holding grossly benighted views, and other human failings. We may manage to muddle through again, or we may find that God has ceased to watch over fools, drunkards, and the United States of America.

Comments

[dewline]

Nosy advice: the Lincoln Project people should form their own party.

[ndrosen]

There’s some merit in that idea; there are also difficulties, one being that in most U.S. elections, there is no proportional representation, which is why the two party system has been stable. If the Lincoln Party candidate and the Trumpublican Party candidate split what used to the Republican vote, the likely result will be the election of a Democrat.