Like most readers at Daily Kos I am nearly distraught at the state of American politics. Our society has elected a dangerous person to the presidency who is obscenely unfit for the office. A political party whose policies are inimical to democracy, the climate, and human rights controls all three branches of government. Like you, I’ve asked myself how this happened and, in that process of reflection, have had to question if I am on the right side of history. Sure, Obama won twice but he wasn’t able to accomplish nearly as much as I wanted due to the extremism of today’s GOP.
I’ve had to consider the possibility that this country has irreversibly devolved from the reasonably solid progressivism that existed between the 1940’s up to Reagan’s election in 1980 to a permanent, and deteriorating, state of anti-intellectual tribalism.
After a few minutes of this questioning I realized that it hasn’t, and more importantly, it won’t.
I am not glossing over the damage Trump and the GOP will wreak in the next few months and year or two but I know their influence will not last because Trump’s strength in the campaign (one, that in hindsight he won a few months after entering the race. His supporters were on board early and were locked in. Trump acknowledged as much with his shooting on 5th avenue comment) worked for the goal of winning a political race but will fail when it comes to governing. This is because all of his flaws-dishonesty, ignorance of the basics of government, severe lack of self-control, rejection and ignorance of basic science and history-that were ignored by his faithful cannot be ignored by our system as a whole. Soon he will be running a country, not a campaign. His flaws persist. They will prevent him from ruining this country with his policies because, and this is as true and reliable as the sun rising in the east, lies, ignorance, and denial of reality never results in durable success. The reality of climate change doesn’t go away because a minority of those who voted chose to ignore it. The reality of Trump’s character flaws does not change because his supporters chose to ignore them. The reality of Trump’s unfitness for office will not change.
He and his GOP enablers deny reality on many fronts. This fact always leads to failure.