OK, this is 2000, 2004, and 2016 all over again.
Actually, no.
All those times we knew we were in for bad policies, bad appointments, bad judges, and everything that comes with a president you don’t like.
This time it isn’t.
Need I bring up Project 2025? Need I bring up the Trump Immunity Ruling?
This is no longer just about policy: this is about terms.
The break that MAGA/Trumpism has made with conservatism of the past is it’s blatant disregard for the rules. For the law, the Constitution….basically everything that the right insists it holds dear.
Nah. Beginning with its figurehead, MAGA will do as it pleases. It will change the rules as it goes. Never mind, it will break the rules whenever and however. But it will hold us to the same rules. Or make new ones just for us. And new reasons they can break them.
The essence of MAGA is that there are two sets of rules- a favorable one for them, and tougher ones for us. The double standard is the entire point. What’s the point of power and privilege of some over others if everyone has to follow the same rules?
This is the way Trump has always played the game. This is the way that the oligarchs and foreign tyrants that support him play it. This is what the MAGA base expects for itself.
Do we all get this? Do we see the Big Picture?
Oligarchs want one set of rules for them and another for everyone else.
White nationalists and Christian nationalists want one set of rules for them and everyone else.
The base of right wing nationalist parties want to maintain their privilege in a world that is more of a melting pot. Men want to retain their superiority over women in a world where women are getting farther ahead of them- professionally and economically- and are refusing to put up with longstanding behaviors (and abuse).
Historically there have been in-groups that have the power and control, and out-groups that exist at the mercy of the in-groups. That’s old news. What’s new is that the out-groups are gaining and refusing to simply take what they can get. Women, non-whites, and LGBQT are looking for actual equality- which threatens the old in-groups. They never have had to grapple with this before.
So Trump has emerged as the avatar of a long-standing double standard of privilege for the in-groups.
Now they want to bring that privilege directly to the law and government.
You already know about turning back DEI and affirmative action. Overturning Roe. Project 2025 threatens a lot more.
But this goes beyond policy. They want to fundamentally want to change the terms. A longstanding civil service that is independent of the political appointees? Nah. Replace them with people loyal to Trump, no matter how unqualified. (Actually the more unqualified the better) We have the tradition of “settled law?” Nah. We changing that rule too.
This is what we are fighting. Many Trump voters are completely clueless about this. Of course, since they are no-information voters they wouldn’t care anyway….until it bites them in the ass. Can’t get birth control or abortion pills thanks to Comstock Act? How many Trump voters knew that was in the cards? An old rule that has been ignored for over a century brought back like a zombie to clamp down on women’s reproductive rights.
THAT is the difference now. And we all have to frame it that way for everyone else.
