What will happen in a post-Trump world is a legitimate and intriguing question that has several possible answers. A better question is what should happen?
Having Trump as President for the next 72 days, until President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in, could be a threat to this nation as his narcissism will motivate him to engage in a scorched earth strategy. Whether it’s denying transition funds or firing his Secretary of Defense, Trump will leave as a bull would leave a China shop where the walls are closing. There should be no doubt there will be settling of scores by the present President. If history is any guide one must recall that when Nixon was in the throes of his controversy and depressed, there were fears that he might try to use the military to help keep himself in office. One can only hope that today there will be someone like then Defense Secretary James Schlesinger who told military personnel that if any orders came from the President about launch orders they should check with him first. While Trump is a lame duck President, he still controls the nuclear codes and the military. In addition Republicans still seem to be exhibiting a strange and unnatural fear of President Trump and his sons.
Nonetheless, the recent article in Foreign Policy magazine by Jonathan Tepperman magazine “Yes Biden won, but it’s still Trump’s America” is a bit hyperbolic. It would suggest no pushback from the rest of America who voted against him. However there danger signs that Democrats must not overlook. These include the increased percentage of black males and Latinos who voted for Trump.
Trump’s America has always been present but was given voice and permission to become unleashed through his victory. Some claimed his supporters overlooked the racism, white supremacist, and authoritarian tendencies of Donald Trump in voting for him. That observation was wrong. It was accepted and welcomed by a significant segment of the Republican electorate.
The author is correct in his assertion that since Trump won in 2016 and came close to winning in 2020, his initial victory cannot be considered a fluke. The reality is that he received more votes in his re-election bid that he did in his initial run. That makes it troubling as it suggests another Trump like figure can come along except smarter.
The question is not about a Trump America but a Trump Republican Party. However, without the office of President how influential and relevant will Donald Trump be. Unless the Democrats win the Senate runoff races, the challenge for President-Elect Joe Biden is whether Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will still be under the control of Donald Trump and family.
More than likely, the majority of Trump voters will be ready to move on in about six months as new and smarter voices begin to appear and edge Trump out of the picture.
It is not clear how media outlets such as Fox News, Sinclair broadcasting, or even Newsmax will deal with Donald Trump once he leaves office. In recent months his obsession with a self grievance may not be something those networks would want as a regular feature of their programs. It is also possible that most Trump voters, who may want to vent, would grow weary of a self-professed billionaire feeling sorry for himself. It would also be interesting to watch how the right reacts to Trump progeny whining night after night about how their father was treated. Without these outlets, Trump would soon become irrelevant.
Trump may try to rile up those who support him. The success of this is contingent upon a notion that Trump will act like a dictator in exile who calls upon his supporters to return him to his rightful place of power. Senator Lindsay Graham suggests Trump study Grover Cleveland who lost re-election but came back to run again and won. Chances are Donald Trump will have a lot more pressing issues to deal with, such as lawsuits and criminal investigations once he leaves office.
A post-Trump world must be seen through various lenses. The first is what happened to the blue wave. As some pollsters predicted a lopsided win for Biden, there has to be an analysis of what occurred. While Biden will get the largest number of votes ever for a presidential candidate, the polls did not pan out as predicted, and Trump received the second higher number of votes ever cast.
Second is the issue of voting itself. The problem is not fraud but rather how to make a process so central to the system of American democracy more user friendly. The idea of partisanship must be taken out of the act of voting. When political success for one side is contingent on voter suppression and intimidation, there must be legislation designed to facilitate the act of voting.
The third is the role of the media and its various forms, including social media. While it will be virtually impossible to end Alex Jones and Qanon’s stupidity, media institutions must work hard to reclaim the listeners’ trust. Conspiracy theories and lies will always be a part of political and social discourse. Nonetheless, there must be a rebuilding of mediating institutions that the overwhelming majority of the American public can rely on to separate lies from truth.
Fourth is a discussion of the relevance of the electoral college. It is not a foregone conclusion that the electoral college should be abolished. The founding fathers did not believe in the total sovereignty of the voting public to make decisions. At the very least, a national discussion should be conducted about its usefulness in the 21st century.
Last is how the parties will speak to their constituency. Parties will eventually go through a political autopsy to analyze what things went well and what things need to be improved. Unfortunately, one of the outcomes of these autopsies for both the Democrats and the Republicans will be fractions that will want to move closer to their extremes. Democrat factions will want to become more progressive while Republican factions will want to become more conservative. Both sides will be wrong.
For Democrats, there is already a battle occurring about who was more responsible for the victory of President-elect Joseph Biden. As John F. Kennedy said, “victory has 1000 fathers, but defeat is an orphan” While various factions can highlight their role in the Biden victory, especially the black vote, the reality is that the best voter turnout organizing tool that the Democrats had in 2020 was in the personage of Donald J. Trump. The danger however is that constant chest beating about who was more responsible for the victory will result in the alienation of other constituencies who were just as important in this coalition. This is why the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, must make sure she stays around to keep a reign on either side’s petulant children. The GOP, on the other hand, must decide to grow a political backbone, govern and not obstruct. The reality is that if either party wants to gain and maintain influence a counter intuitive strategy must be adopted.
At the center of all of this is civic engagement. While the presidency will always be the most interesting political engagement must occur at all levels of government. There are fundamental issues that must be addressed. One problem is why the United States is such a lazy country when it comes to voting. This year pundits lifted the fact that more people voted than ever before. As a percentage, however, the United States is still behind most industrialized nations when it comes to voter turnout. There was a lot of talk about the youth vote, who quite frankly may be one of the laziest constituents. While there was a surge, it only amounted to 53%. One of the problems of young people who don’t vote is their propensity to create intellectual virtue for civic laziness by saying that neither candidate appeals to them. This is not civic intellectualism; this is sheer laziness.
Political parties tend to think they have more of a mandate than they do.
Carl Jung had a theory called enantiodromia, which essentially states that the opposite emerges after a period of time. The electorate tends to self-correct. That is why during midterm congressional elections, there is a tendency for the out of power party to gain seats or even take over the house as Democrats did in 2018.
For either party wise enough to realize it, there is an opportunity to create a new political dialogue that can speak to the self-interest of varied constituencies across boundaries. There is no reason why farm, rural and urban communities cannot discuss issues of mutual self-interest. There is a new political reality that can be built between women of color and white suburban women, college educated and non college educated individuals. The question is who will be willing to expend the time and resources to create this new political alignment.
On an international level, there is no doubt there will be a shift as President-elect Biden, an adherent of relational power, has already announced that he will be rejoining the Paris Accord, the Iranian deal, and the World Health Organization.
This is not Donald Trump’s America. Seventy five million people have spoken loudly. The question is whose America will this be? The last four years have exacerbated an already polarized electorate. It is quite possible that the election of Donald Trump represented the last gasp of a diminishing, but still prevalent culture of xenophobia, religious bigotry and white supremacy. Despite the antics of President Trump, this will be an America governed by new principles at least for the next several years. For now we have the promise of a sane government but to paraphrase Benjamin Franklin “If you can keep it”