Don't Underestimate Trumpism Again
Opponents can vote their conscience — if they jump through the right bureaucratic hoops. Make sure you know them.
Plutarch said the tyrant never grows old but it seems neither does Trump’s perpetual impunity.
The self-proclaimed “business tycoon” had already been embroiled in more than 4,000 lawsuits¹ before he became the president of the United States — and a sneering grotesque golem of American hypocrisy, transmuted into a celebrity politician by petty hatreds and jingoism. Rabid Trumpism proves there is no crime too violent, no breach too immoral for his loyalists to say ‘enough.’
Liberal white voters underestimated Trump and his campaign before.
“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn’t become a king. The palace instead becomes a circus.” — Turkish proverb.
We can’t underestimate Trumpism now.
To put it as crassly as much of Trump’s 2015 speeches were, liberal white America trusted a fart — an embarrassingly base, rank campaign we assumed would ultimately be harmless — and then forgotten. But, of course, it shat forth a sober Falstaff, a hate monger championed by millions as “chosen by God,”² a true patriot to herald a new era of white Christian nationalism.
For those who thought it couldn’t get any worse than the 2016 campaign trail, we now have a twice-impeached³ former president campaigning from the courtroom, where die-hard Trumpists are celebrating him as their persecuted hero. The Christian Right continues to mythologize the 77-year-old philandering grandfather as their outlaw crusader.
It gives them no moral pause that he was convicted of assault in DC, indicted for 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to pay off a porn actress in New York, and federally criminally indicted for election tampering in Georgia. If inciting an insurrection made him a freedom fighter, RICO violations make him a gangster protagonist.
As many predicted, Trump’s ongoing trial in Georgia, and the world’s now most famous mugshot did not, of course, dissuade the MAGAholics; it reignited them.
Trump’s mugshot is the new Gadsden flag, a pouty Don’t Tread on Me. His loyalists think he is their coiled rattlesnake, always ready to strike and defend them despite decades of lawsuits, bankruptcies, NDAs, and breaches of contract proving that he only fights for himself.
This Prince Prospero is no nobleman as he, for years, denied the same plague he hid from while hundreds of thousands died. Trump, with his overly practiced “withering” glare, is not being disqualified for the presidency by multiple cases in multiple jurisdictions.⁴ From business fraud to assault, simultaneous civil and criminal trials seem only to increase his popularity among his base rather than tank his credibility with everyone. While that is as incomprehensible and unconscionable to his opponents as it is a triumphant middle finger to the “woke elite”, it is precisely this hypocrisy that we underestimated before. They like the guy who gets away with breaking the rules. Because their guy is above the law. He is their revolutionary.
Campaign-era Trump was dismissed as a reality TV flash-in-the-pan. Since we didn’t take the snake oil salesman seriously, it didn’t occur to too many white liberal voters how many of our fellow Americans inexplicably embraced him as their antidote to Godless liberalism. His cruelty resonated with them. As was chillingly observed about every bigotry his campaign exposed, every vile slur-turned-policy, his crimes, like his bigotry, are not a bug, they’re a feature.
For those who find career business fraud, tax evasion, criminal conspiracy, and sexual assault to be disqualifying leadership traits, here are the steps you can take to preserve your American right to vote — and prevent another four years of reactionary Trump radicalism.
Make sure you are registered to vote and that your registration is current and accurately reflects your name, address, and signature. If you live in a state without mail-in voting, (I’m sorry, they should all be), confirm where your nearest polling place is and plan ahead to match your schedule with their listed hours. Many have been closed in politically motivated maneuvers to further block historically disenfranchised voters, particularly people of color and low-income voters.⁵
If you live in a state that requires ID or multiple forms of ID in order to vote, make sure you have that with you before you wait in line.
Do you know what a provisional ballot is? If you are turned away at a polling place you can request a provisional ballot on-site. You do not have to schedule an appointment or go to the county elections office.
Verify the rules and deadlines regarding registration and absentee ballots if you are a blind or low-vision voter, mobility impaired, military, traveling, living in a different state, or living abroad. Check for dates and hours for early voting options in your jurisdiction.
Georgia residents, if you are planning on voting on Election Day itself, bring water and snacks if you anticipate long lines. It is currently a crime to offer food and water to voters.⁶
Volunteer to register eligible voters. Volunteer for campaigns and candidates you believe in. Carpool or offer rides to voters without vehicles or who have difficulty accessing public transportation.
And don’t wait for presidential election years. District Attorney elections, as we see throughout Trump’s current trials, are key players in adjudicating justice that eludes the executive branch. Research the candidates that will best preserve our checks and balances.
Take ongoing threats to representative democracy seriously. A career criminal broods with a seething conviction that he is entitled to the Oval Office and all its power. If he wins again, he’ll take the presidency, not with a sworn oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, but with a vendetta for the four years he believes liberals stole from him.