Since the arrival of the initial indictments in New York, I think the conversation around Trump has shifted. Not that he doesn't still have that well of support amongst the sycophants... but the understanding of what that fan base is (and isn't)... maybe, just maybe, is coming into focus.
DC media, with it's instinctive "who's up, who's down" mindset, doesn't quite get this... but right now, the problem is less about Trump, per se, and more about why his fans were drawn to him to begin with, and what they will do if he's (forcibly) removed from the stage.
One of the biggest misunderstandings of Trump's popularity, I'm convinced, is thinking his fans elected him President as defined by our Constitution or taught in Civics. Because the people who voted in that popularity contest (whether 2016 or 2020) weren't picking the head of our Executive Branch... they were electing something more like "Prom King" or "Favorite TV Host" or America's next MMA star... one of those.
And, as you might guess, those roles don't have a lot of definition around them.
It's not that "Trump thinks he'll be reinstated in August" was bonkers, or that Trump believes it; the problem is, still, no one seems to quite know what to do about it.
Just look at Mike Pence, who trotted out something to the effect of "reasonable can disagree" or... what was it? "we may never see eye to eye"? Pence would apparently like to suggest that he represents the sensible middle between normal government and bonkers crazypants world.... but that's not a middle, never mind anyplace real. The fact that Pence, hilariously, thinks that he can bridge the distance between non Trump Republicans and the "Hang Mike Pence" crowd - we may never see eye to eye, what with you hanging from the tree like that - is perhaps just the perfect cherry on top of the ludicrous sundae of Republican failures to do anything about Trump since he lost reelection.
They can't, of course: that would involve a return to a kind of sanity that's long gone in the discussion of Trump, conservatism, or our current Right Wing. You can't "do something" about Trump any more than you can advocate a sensible vaccine policy, question the Critical Race Theater, or stop Marjorie Taylor Greene. Tug on the threads of crazy that make up this useless tapestry... and the whole thing just unravels.
We get lost, I think, too much in asking whether the blind eye Republicans seem to have about taking on Trump is calculated opportunism or blind fear of his fans... because the reason really doesn't matter. Whether Trump can or will marshal his fan base to turn out in GOP primaries and punish naysayers (say, Liz Cheney) is still no excuse; and sure, the folks who raise money and cheerfully pass along his lies knowing they're untrue is gross (never mind the remaining contingent of true believer sycophants). But really, no one needs proof the Republican party, the wider conservative movement or the nutty world of QAnon is bankrupt morally, out of ideas and running on sheer desperation. The question is... when we get to August, and the lies are revealed (if not, you know, next week)... what difference will even that make? And if not August, what month? Does that matter either?
It makes no difference because, in no small part, we are watching the doings in a land where they don't have a President... they have a King. And sure, the crown is just some spray painted foil, and the Kingdom is whatever the view he's surveying from the absurd Mansion McCastle he's calling home - he's king of all he surveys, and what he sees on TV. And sure, that kingdom is a lot smaller since he was deposed... but the struggle now is the lingering collection of misunderstandings and lies. It's the way angry conservatives expect governance to happen by fiat. It's that anger itself, really - that education policy can be run by the angry mob, that "law and order" can simplified to police vs an angry mob of minorities... but ignore any angry white mob, say, invading our nation's capital.
Even now, as the GOP tries to sideline Trump - generally with no idea as to how - the real problem is clearer: maybe, perhaps, you can remove The King... but that just leaves a restless crowd all too eager to hand over that crown to the next opportunist. The hesitancy within the right around autocrats and authoritarians is both how we got here and why they're stuck. Without a wholesale rethinking and reorientation to the truly American ideals - of consensus, collaboration, the values of a democratic republic - the core of the right floats further away from both reality and any real shot at redemption. Sure, there are risks to our way of life and our government that we must stand up to... still, what we may be witnessing, more to their point, is the death march to a dead end.
The teetering tower of ever piling up bs apparently hasn't reached a jenga-like moment of toppling over... but we sure look close. Trump is months, if not days or weeks, from a legal reckoning that could make a lot of his plans moot. So too, are the fates of a number of Trump hangers-on facing legal results over, say, those frivolous election lawsuits. Arizona's recount soldiers on, unlikely to give anything like the results long promised. The natives are getting restless - and pandering to ugly racist tropes while deliberately encouraging deadly myths about vaccines and public health is playing with a kind of fire that many will regret sooner rather than later. Offer up your best excuses... but conservatives are at the end of their innocence in many ways. Your land without a King, your King without a crown... wait til they find out this land... isn't their land, after all.
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