Frank's Musings

MAGA Voters won’t listen to reason. They feel that Trump shows them how to succeed by defiling the establishment’s rules.  Ramaswamy and Haley miss this point. They proudly restate Trump’s tirades in rational terms; but their arguments fall on angry ears that are deaf to what is viewed as pusillanimity. 

The MAGA movement is not based primarily on policy differences. It is a paroxysm of resentment at being left behind. Its members can be weaned away from a demagogue only by believable improvement in their economic well-being and in their sense of being valued by the “establishment.”

This is where the Democrats must focus to weaken the reliability of the MAGA base for Republicans. Deflating that electoral juggernaut means adopting a program of safety-net incentives to encourage risk-taking and determined effort by ordinary citizens in their career, budgeting, and investment decisions. That should be the centerpiece of the 2024 Democratic platform.

What is holding back qualified middle-aged Democrats from nudging aside Joe Biden? They all must share the foot-tapping impatience uncovered in recent polls of likely 2024 voters. Despite general satisfaction with Biden’s first term performance, likely Democratic voters are not confident that the executive branch will be mastered as well by a President who enters his mid-eighties in age. Nevertheless, few Democrats have staked a claim on the 2024 nomination.

There surely remains enough time to initiate a Presidential campaign, particularly for prospective candidates with proven governmental experience and accomplishments. Some of the most likely replacements for Biden include the following:

Gretchen Whitmer

Gavin Newsom

Pete Buttigieg

Josh Shapiro

Kamala Harris

Cory Booker

L.B. Pritzker

Any of them would have to begin raising funds, brush up their international visibility with foreign travel, meet with state and local party leaders around the country, register for the leading primary elections and, of course, mount a serious media blitz. If any of them hasn’t already done so, they also must speak with Biden and express their intentions.

The more numerous they become, the more likely Joe Biden, a consummate “reader of the room,” will decide that backing strong new names on his party’s ticket is the best and surest way for him to help save American democracy.

Confirmed Trumpists are, like him, anti-establishmentarians. They resent “elite” direction of their lives and “elite” determination of the success of their endeavors.  In the end they prefer to rely on a single authority instead of on the indeterminacy of compromise between competing factions in a democracy.

Similarly, they find themselves to be compatible with dogmatic or fundamentalist religions.  Ironically, their affinity with extremely conservative religious codes seems to liberate them from standards set by “woke,” i.e., critically thinking, leaders. Because it is those elites who ultimately make society’s rules the law doesn’t matter to Trumpists.

The recent country music anthem, “Rich Men North of Richmond” by Oliver Anthony, encapsulates this attitude. “Lord knows they all just wanna have total control.  And they don’t think you know. But I know that you do; ‘cause your dollar is taxed to no end ‘cause of rich men north of Richmond.”

Anthony is politically ambivalent. He recognizes that Republican tax cuts really favor the wealthy and only give a comparative pacifier to the middle class. That demonstrates that all politicians, left or right, can easily gaslight a near-majority of voters into voting for them while not jeopardizing their careers or fundraising prospects.

Those who support a demagogue, like Trump, are so angered by their feeling of being left behind that they coalesce behind his banner because in their minds any change in the status quo can be no worse.

 The insurrection was led by Trump, a quintessential libertarian, and manned by a disorganized collection of anti-establishmentarians. The former President did make plans with his collaborators to create havoc on Jan 6. But they failed to make a plan that could realistically turn the chaos into a new government.

Perhaps that failure was inevitable; libertarians are, by definition, opposed to submitting to organized government.

The psychologist’s explanation of Donald Trump’s protection of his classified “transitional objects,” (the documents stored at Mar-a-Lago) in the 6/16/2023 NY Times reminded me of my childhood little sister’s loss of her favorite blanket out the window of my father’s station wagon when a gust of wind grabbed it away from the location in which she usually held it on her cheek and onto the road during a family trip across the plains states.  That transition was trauma-less.  She was ready for the change.  “The Donald” seems not to want to let go.

And why should he?  The real question is why so many voters stubbornly support him.  They recognize in Trump the same frustration they too feel towards the country’s establishment leaders who appear to succeed even though they play by the rules.  Of course, they do.  Afterall, the establishment made the rules--they believe rules are necessary for a functioning society.  

Trump is the avatar of those who have given up on accepting any rules at all.  More and more people, including Trump followers (and those who harken to most of the other Republican presidential candidates) have lost their respect for rules of behavior and civic order.  Furthermore, others even discount rules of biological gender assignment.   These and many more recent cases of non-conformist conduct celebrating individualism have been fomented by unmediated information exchange.  Modern communications technology, making possible social media and many other types of personal internet links, has enabled self-appointed town criers to reach the entire planet of listeners, directly and without comment from intervening experts or points of view.  Not only has this made demagoguery more widespread and effective, but it has also led people to believe in their rightful independence.  Liberty today is commonly confused with unrestrained freedom to act according to personal whim, like an unschooled three-year-old.

Recognizing the growth of this trend, Trump and his coterie of political careerists have honed their election messages to offer nothing more than the chaos that inevitably results from an extreme libertarian approach to social organization.  Seldom does an iconoclast like Trump lead us into a political halcyon.

 Establishing a well-ordered society requires that we elect leaders who have a vision beyond self-gratification.  Moreover, it needs a compelling message to those citizens who have abandoned hope that society will ever justly reward their achievements.  To preserve American democracy, it must be shown that personal or familial happiness can only be accomplished through collective equity.