Where do we go from here?

[CFordUNC]

I've been thinking a lot about what comes next after Trump and as much as I know a lot of folks may find this to sound absurd while we are currently in the throes of Trump 2.0 stupidity, I truly do think that MAGA has a shelf life that is approaching expiration.

I think we are already finding out in real time that MAGA does not have a bench roster that’s capable of stepping in for Trump and winning national elections. Not one single other person in the MAGA movement has the winning combination of bluster, bravado, and lizard-brained charisma that Trump has. Hell, it can be reasonably argued that the only Republican who had a good day on Election Day was Donald Trump himself. The GOP lost all sorts of races downballot that they had no business losing in a year where the top of the ticket won only the second Republican popular vote in decades.

I truly think that Trump’s own incompetence will scatter the effectiveness of his efforts- we are already seeing it happening in real time as we speak with these absurdly outlandish cabinet appointments and the looming fight that he is picking with the GOP establishment in the Senate. I think that Trump's policies will likely make enough of a mess economically that he will lose one or both houses of Congress in 2026. Trump is much closer to the end than the beginning of his time, both politically and actuarially, and once he’s gone, I think that the most dangerous elements of MAGA will fizzle. Even a Ron DeSantis type, although I'd never, ever vote for someone like him, is much less prone to encouraging political violence and norm-busting than Trump, and we have already seen that the most shameless MAGA ballwashers flat out can’t win national elections on their own, IMO.

None of the above is intended to sound like hopium or to sound pollyanna-ish, but just my attempted take on what I personally think is realistic. Trump doesn't want to govern. He wants to enrich himself. The GOP *can't* govern- it's only effective as an oppositional out-party. There are a whole lot of people who are about to realize the hard way that all of that blustering and bullshitting about illegal immigrants, open borders, transgender people, and the like aren't going to reduce the price of eggs, aren't going to make housing more affordable, aren't going to make them and their families more prosperous, etc. And I'm not someone who is willing to buy the whole "well we might not have free and fair elections in 2028" thing. Yes, we will. And I also don't buy the "Trump is never going to voluntarily leave office." He won't have a choice. Not one single Democratically-led state, and likely all but the most hopeless of red states, are going to even participate in an election where the top of the ticket violates the Constitutional prohibition on a third term presidency.

TL;DR: this, too, shall pass. It may not be without tons of annoyance, or without quite a bit of hardship and suffering for certain groups, but it shall pass.

 

[superrific]

TL;DR: this, too, shall pass. It may not be without tons of annoyance, or without quite a bit of hardship and suffering for certain groups, but it shall pass.

Only if free and fair elections are preserved. And that's very much an open question right now. Trump and his transition team are naming exactly the people you'd expect to name if the goal was to end free and fair elections.

And that's probably because they realize that Trump has a limited shelf life. And that's why Elon jumped on board in 2024 and not earlier. He sees an opportunity here. He can't be president per the constitution, but he could be dictator if that's thrown out. Or more likely, he will be the kingmaker and wield power behind the scenes.

It also doesn't matter if Trump decides to abuse the adjourn Congress power that was included in the constitution only because legislators were only part-time and often had to return to their homes to do stuff like oversee the harvest, and one chamber could fuck with the other by denying a recess or scheduling it weirdly. If he's able to get away with that, then there will be no legislature at all and the 2026 elections will not matter.

 

[superrific]

I've made a variation of this post (what follows below) half a dozen times now.

Everything unpopular will be blamed on the Dems/not-MAGA folks by right-wing media. They are the critical part of keeping this all going and - coupled with their already baked-in cultish denialism of non-MAGA reality - you can bet the farm the Trump supporters will eat that shit up. For the foreseeable future. The analogy I've used is the Oceania/Eurasia narrative pushed in 1984.

And sincerely, I would love to be wrong here and hope I am, but I don't think I will be.

Maybe. I think it's different when it hits close to home. If inflation goes up to 15%, then maybe they will want to blame Dems but they will also be facing 15% inflation and they might draw the causal connection. Anyway, sure there will be some ride or die MAGAs but could the GOP gather even 40% of the vote if we have 15% inflation, 8% unemployment, and no safety net?

 

[CFordUNC]

Only if free and fair elections are preserved.

So I'm definitely going to reveal my ignorance of how elections work here, but wouldn't we just theoretically need free and fair elections to work in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and perhaps Arizona and North Carolina, all of which will have Democratic governors? Obviously if we don't have free and fair elections in the other 45 states, we have unfathomably big problems, but I just mean that strictly from a election integrity standpoint, what could be done to rig elections in those swing states where a Democratic governor presides?

 

[JCTarheel82]

Lololol under $360,000 huh? Going to be a whole lot of middle class Trump voters with this face:

Voting for your own financial demise to own the libs.

 

[CFordUNC]

Voting for your own financial demise to own the libs.

But Joe Middle Class swore that Kamala Harris was going to tax his unrealized capital gains!!

 

[superrific]

So I'm definitely going to reveal my ignorance of how elections work here, but wouldn't we just theoretically need free and fair elections to work in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and perhaps Arizona and North Carolina, all of which will have Democratic governors? Obviously if we don't have free and fair elections in the other 45 states, we have unfathomably big problems, but I just mean that strictly from a election integrity standpoint, what could be done to rig elections in those swing states where a Democratic governor presides?

It's not about rigging them per se, as in fucking with the tabulation machines. It's more subtle. Maybe they put troops at certain polling locations to depress turnout there, because voting ain't worth getting into a fight with the army. Or they bring criminal charges against Bluesky to shutter it during the election period, thus boosting Xitter. Or close Dem polling locations under pretext of a federal statute and require Dems to travel to other areas to vote. Or direct the USPS to lose ballots from certain zip codes.

Or they concoct BS criminal charges against Dem candidates.

Think of the election as a craps game. If the house loads the dice, it doesn't need to prevent anyone from rolling.

 

[CFordUNC]

Thought this was a really interesting read and very thought-provoking.

America doesn't really have a working class: Why class politics is unlikely to succeed where identity politics failed.​

America doesn't really have a working class

Why class politics is unlikely to succeed where identity politics failed.

www.noahpinion.blog

 

[finesse]

Thought this was a really interesting read and very thought-provoking.

America doesn't really have a working class: Why class politics is unlikely to succeed where identity politics failed.​

America doesn't really have a working class

Why class politics is unlikely to succeed where identity politics failed.

www.noahpinion.blog

Thanks. That captures a lot of what I've been feeling and gives me some angles to examine.

I think ultimately we going to reach a point where population growth is unnecessary for either protection, production or prosperity because of automation and computerization. Some people are going to be left behind and we might end up looking at some sort of basic minimum income and housing for those. Going to be interesting to see where that takes us.

 

[UNCatTech]

Lololol under $360,000 huh? Going to be a whole lot of middle class Trump voters with this face:

This is in project 2025.

I've been pointing this out for months and am very puzzled how many believe they will recieve a tax cut from Trump.

It's quite interesting thinking about the response from trumpers if Trump implements his tax plan.

 

[CFordUNC]

Interesting read, though it will surprise no one that I disagree with the conclusion.

I tend to agree with super that all politics are identity politics now. Identity politics haven’t failed, more so that Democrats have wrapped themselves in the wrong identities. Identities that many people across the country see as counter to their own.

That is, being working class (or someone who works for a living, however you want to phrase it) is an identity in and of itself. It is an extremely powerful identity and one that unites people across racial and gender lines. We’ve seen this work throughout American history in other political movements.

You know I appreciate your perspective and point of view!

 

[uncjhodges]

“‘Who’s the one doing the dividing here?’ Mr. Osborn asked in an interview on Monday. ‘I think it’s the people who are laughing all the way to the bank while us common folk live paycheck to paycheck.’

…Mainly, though, his biggest calling card was his genuine working-class identity and a penchant for listening. It wasn’t a particularly substantive campaign — he still struggles to articulate the policies that distinguished him from Republicans and Democrats — but it was one that avoided the impression that many Democrats leave, that in appealing to working-class voters, they talk down to them.”

To be fair, he probably avoided that impression just by running as an independent and not a democrat

 

[aGDevil2k]

The term working class has always bugged me

 

[aGDevil2k]

Mind explaining a bit?

It implies white collar folks don't work

 

[uncjhodges]

It implies white collar folks don't work

It also, to me, just reinforces the notion that WWC in the midwest/south are the real americans

 

[UNCatTech]

The term working class has always bugged me

Me too.

I don't like that it seems to imply that those who are not performing physical labor for an hourly rate as somehow not working. We pretty much all have to work, so the separation of people by the term doesn't make sense to me.

 

[BlooVooDoo]

Mind explaining a bit?

Probably a complaint about how it’s used almost exclusively for non-college educated, blue collar folks. It implies doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, accountants, middle managers, etc. don’t work for a living.

 

[rodoheel]

With the whole "working class" thing, I will just add that I think that one tough thing for some educated liberals is that we're constantly criticized for talking down to and/or not engaging with or understanding working-class folks but working-class folks are never criticized for talking down to and/or not engaging with or understanding us. I have heard so much vitriol from "working-class" people about urban "elites" (by which they generally appear to mean people with advanced degrees, or in some cases pretty much any college degree). They demean our education, and education generally, as brainwashing and propaganda. They call our values "woke" and "virtue signaling." They call their own small towns the "real" America and demean the jobs we do as not real or valuable because they don't involve physically growing food or building things or manufacturing a product.

I don't mean for this to be some sad "woe is me" liberal rant. I'm not suggesting that I or people like me are victimized or downtrodden or whatever. It is just frustrating to be constantly told that it is our fault for not engaging with this other group of people when that group of people is just as responsible for not engaging with us. Especially when I'm confident that the average educated liberal has done more to *try* to understand working-class people (whether in a misguided fashion or not) than the other way around.

 

[rodoheel]

Not necessarily. It allows people to map themselves onto the notion of what a worker is. I’m a white collar worker but still consider myself working class because of the kind of money I make. Working class isn’t just middle-aged white pipe fitters.

You might consider yourself "working class," and you may even be correct in doing so, but I suspect the pipe fitters and the railroad workers and the linemen and the firefighters think otherwise. IMO "working class" these days almost always connotes blue-collar jobs, not white-collar jobs, though in our developed economy there's obviously a very blurry line between the two.

 

[Wolfslayer]

I'm white working class. Managing 79 15 year olds is like herding cats. After 5 hours of my 3 World History classes, I am physically, emotionally and mentally exhausted. I love them and wouldn't want to do anything else but goddamn it is work for $58,000 a year. I know plenty of high school educated tradesmen that make two to three times that and don't work as hard.