The Trump Problem: A Simple Solution

I’ve been posting this argument piecemeal on LinkedIn, in response to individual Trumpian posts spinning the latest Trump outrage, dismissing the latest revelation, and/or crowing about “winning” in 2016 and The Donald being the President. In the interest of time, if not parsimony and comity, let’s try to at least put some boundaries around the insane shouting and exchange of personal insults, and agree on a few things.

Givens

1. Donald Trump is the President of the United States: popular vote margins, alleged rampant voter fraud, and/or the vagrancies of the Electoral College notwithstanding, period.
2. A reasonable person could have voted for, and still support, Donald Trump. A reasonable person could have voted for, and still support, some other candidate, say Hillary Clinton. Not all Trump voters were, and not all continuing supporters of Trump are, reasonable people. The same is true for those who did not vote for, or now do not support, Trump.
3. Supporting or opposing Trump in 2016 and/or now, has no bearing on one’s love of America, patriotism, religiosity, manliness (if a man), or whatever the equivalent is (if a woman), or even one’s intelligence, though that last concession is a bitter pill for me.
4. Trump supporters are not necessarily ignorant, uninformed, racist, xenophobic, a neo-Nazi, or a lunatic, though some are. Trump detractors are not necessarily America or Trump Haters, “snowflakes,” liberals, radicals, anarchists, Marxists, or [insert your favorite pejorative here], though some are.
5. Liberals and/or Democrats are not the source of all that is right, or wrong, in America. Conservative and/or Republicans are not the source of all this is right, or wrong, in America. Each Tribe/Party has committed crimes of omission and commission; neither is without blame for the situation we now find ourselves in.
6. As partisans, we have all sinned here. No one is without blame. We have engaged in behavior we normally would not, said needlessly insulting, hateful, ignorant, patently untrue, and stupid things. We are better than our behavior since Trump’s unlikely and unanticipated election would indicate.
7. Barring an Act of God, President Trump will likely remain in office at least until after the 2018 mid-term elections. It is unlikely that Trump will be removed from Office by a Republican-majority Congress, or that he will relinquish his Office voluntarily.
8. Point (7) is why we have a Constitution and elections every two years.
9. If Trump hangs on to power until the 2018 mid-terms, not a certainty but highly likely, given the current Republican majorities in the House and Senate, the voters will get a chance to provide him and both political Parties some corrective feedback.
10. If Trump's favorable polling still stands at less than 40%, and unfavorable polling around 55-60%, and voters still elect a majority of Republicans to office in the Congress in 2018, then Trump likely will get to stay in Office until after the election in 2020.
11. If they maintain majorities, whether the Republicans win legitimately, buy, steal, or 'voter purge' their way to power in 2018, if The People tolerate it, it will stand. So be it.
12. If the Democratic Party cannot field candidates and fashion an agenda that defeats a majority of Republicans in the House and Senate in 2018, presuming Trump’s continued low approval numbers and either continued Republican Congressional inaction or the enactment of unpopular laws, my Democrats and the Nation will face a problem that transcends the Trump Problem.

Commentary

Republicans are famous for creating mandates out of nothing at all, governing after losing the popular vote, and despite low approval ratings. Realizing that politics is War by other Means, where winning is the only thing, they are unconstrained by shame or any concern for the Common Good. And the Republicans deliver, in real time—slashing taxes on the Rich, eliminating even the most reasonable Corporate, environmental, food safety, and other regulations, and hurting real people (demonized by them and their base and powerless to defend themselves). The only way to stop them is to vote them out of office; no matter how much they spend, how gerrymandered their districts are, and how much fear, hate, and resentment they stir-up.

Our Founders created a Republic that could endure; given an informed, engaged, and vigilant electorate, and honorable politicians. That Republic has endured—born in a Revolution that defeated a super power—through a bloody Civil War, a couple minor wars and not too serious dust-ups, two World Wars, wars we started in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, and an Arms Race and Cold War that threatened all life on our planet.

These men, products of The Enlightenment, couldn’t create a Republic that would endure under all conditions. They gave us a chance to govern ourselves, but there are no guarantees in life, and nothing lasts forever. If we are now seeing the disintegration of America, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

We are not going to insult, shout, threaten, hate, fear, scapegoat, or even shoot our way out of this. Trump’s election is the inevitable result of an increasingly disengaged electorate, a people who have become so fat, stupid, alienated, and sedated by mass marketing driven materialism, that they elected a mentally ill demagogue, out of ignorance, misdirected rage, hate and/or fear, or just for the entertainment value of it. We have put our future, and that of our Republic, at risk. We can vote our way out of this, as soon as 2018, or failing that, again in 2020. My intemperate calls for a Civil War rematch notwithstanding, the vote is not only a simple solution, it is the only viable one.