Frank's Musings

I spent a long time reading Ross  Douthat’s podcast with Matthew  Continetti, a conservative journalist.  It confounded me that two critical thinkers believe that Trump has intentionally transformed the Republican party.  Trump has only been along for the ride as the frontman for an undeclared coalition of conservative thinkers, including Stephen Miller, who are impatient with what they view as rule under an elitist political system.  Trump has done this for his entire career.  What a lucky man to have lived as the heir of a real estate magnate with the  wealth and childish  presumption  to have gained the indulgence of hungry financiers, anxious wives, copycat children, regretful entrepreneurs, opinion writers, and media-led voters to realize his fantasies of building projects, consumer scams, and political prominence!  His raison d’etre is self-aggrandizement  with no regard for what those personal luxuries may cost others.  Moreover, he has no regard for critical thinking.

My fear is that there is an informal group  of Svengalis behind Trump’s throne who have been taking advantage of his audience  appeal to subvert the protections of our Constitutional democracy that have outgrown their eighteenth-century effectiveness.  Its   objective is to leave America’s trappings of liberal democracy in place, and  to free  the economy from the fetters that prevent even more concentration of capital in the hands of the select few endowed with the wit and luck safely to ignore the common interest and achieve their personal ambitions. 

The most prominent  of these influencers behind Trump include Stephen Miller and Curtis Yarvin.  But other successful investors and entrepreneurs in this group include internet investors Peter Theil, Marc Andreesen, and even VP JD Vance.   It is they that the MAGA Crowd has unwittingly empowered to rake advantage of their influene on Trump’s insecure personality  to remove liberal impulses from American democracy.  Those of us who wish our government  to realize its intended purpose of the promoting the common welfare must express  that goal into a language that addresses the daily concerns of the majority of Americans.