A bad ending risks undermining the legacy of a successful presidency. But the “Trumpian” themes will remain
The events in Washington certainly represent a bad achievement for Donald Trump's presidency which unfortunately does not do justice to the actual political contents expressed in these four years.
The doubts about the regularity of the electoral process, the media-cultural ostracism of which a part of the Trumpian people have felt a victim in recent years, the substantial carte blanche that has been granted in many contexts to extremist and violent movements of the radical left, are all factors that must be kept in mind to understand the mood of many of the Washington protesters, but which are not sufficient to justify some of the dynamics that have arisen. And it is clear that although the president cannot be accused of inciting the revolt, he certainly has objective responsibilities in having underestimated the delicacy of the situation, the dangers to public order and, as a side effect but far from irrelevant, the political damage that from the facts and their narration would have arisen for its own cause.
Although the most sensational Trumpian slip is linked to the images of the disordered "hold of Congress", the president had already been on a slippery road for a few weeks. It was the whole post-election conduct that was problematic. As important representatives of the Republican Party have argued, the president's behavior was very disappointing and this is a real drama because it risks compromising the legacy of a four-year period that is otherwise not only legitimately defensible, but which has been of objective success since many points of view.
There was certainly a part of the Republican base that felt the need to play it all right away – to go "all in" in the name of Donald Trump. This stems from the political-fueled feeling, on both fronts, of the epic character of the ongoing clash. The crucial historical moment. The defense of the last trench before all is lost forever.
Of course, the concept that "this is the most important election ever" is one of the most constant and consolidated rhetorical weapons in politics. It serves to create the right climate, the right state of urgency, the right mobilization. It is exciting to think that the current election is "the most important ever", but it is almost never true. All previous elections were also the most important ever. And all the next ones will be too. Because there will be other elections, other Republican candidates, other Georgia, other Arizona and other Pennsylvania.
The point is that Donald Trump did not understand that the viable avenues of contesting the vote had run out. The president wanted to remain attached to the openings potentially left by some technicalities, to try in every way to avoid the appointment of Joe Biden. It has reached the point where this would have been possible through some constitutionally borderline and clearly unusual passages.
Yes, Mike Pence and the Senate would probably have had some technical loophole to block the certification of the votes of the electors, but in the same sense in which Queen Elizabeth could put herself to "active use" of certain of her symbolic prerogatives. The fact is that a democracy is not only made up of laws, but also of customs. Not everything is permitted and not everything that is technically feasible is also actually permissible. Indeed, probably no advanced governance system would work if compliance with written rules were not accompanied by compliance with unwritten rules of "fair play" . Customs represent a fundamental element of a strong democracy and are precious, especially from a "conservative" point of view, because they represent a form of limitation of the discretion of political power.
After all, those who rightly see a danger in Joe Biden's and Kamala Harris' leftist project must ask themselves in which scenario the Republicans have the greatest chance of winning the next election. If they have a better chance if the United States of America remain on the track of a customary democracy, regulated not only by laws, but also by institutional etiquette. Or if they have a better chance if American politics is reduced to a test of strength, in which each of the two parties can use substantially any means, any clause, any loophole in order to prevail.
Those who prefer the second scenario would do well to remember that in the next legislature the Democrats will have control of the White House, the Senate and, through packing , also the potential control of the Supreme Court. Is it really worthwhile to move the comparison to the pure level of the arm wrestling?
But also the ambition to continue to represent a central political player even after the presidency appears “unusual”. Any former president, as well as to avoid compromising the image of their years in the White House with a subsequent "anti-climax", also steps aside out of respect for their political side. He may remain a "noble father" of course, like Reagan or Obama, but he knows he is by now a too cumbersome figure whose withdrawal is essential to favor an internal debate and a process of selection of the new ruling class as free as possible from conditioning.
The temptation that Trump certainly had to pass from the role of president to that of "opposition leader" is therefore unconvincing, a figure not foreseen by American political conventions or, better, carried out "de facto" by the leaders parliamentarians of the House and Senate. It is a consolidated, functioning mechanism that does not require “innovations”.
Recognizing the problematic nature of Donald Trump's positions in recent weeks does not mean, however, to believe that "everything went well" in the electoral process. Whatever the Facebook disclaimers say, the widespread use of postal voting raises more than legitimate doubts and may have actually influenced, albeit in an unknowable and unverifiable way, the outcome of these elections. The coronavirus emergency has made a voting method of primary use that was born in the past from a complementary perspective and on whose methods and guarantees of integrity probably never enough attention had been paid.
We must ask ourselves whether, once the specific context of the pandemic has been overcome, it is really useful for postal voting to remain an ordinary voting method, or whether it would be more reasonable to re-establish the primacy of face-to-face voting. A return to the traditional ballot box in a single day, as is the case all over the world, on the one hand would help to restore the sacredness of the electoral rite, on the other it could offer greater guarantees of neutrality and transparency to the process. In fact, for a democracy to enjoy a transversal consensus of citizens, it is necessary not only that the elections are correct, but also that they appear to everyone as such.
It is therefore necessary to reconsider the electoral laws. However, this must be done in the appropriate ways and fora, in parliaments and state courts, and it is a "behind the scenes" job that requires more technical expertise than political proclamations, much less broken up. And it's probably years of work, for which the creative shortcuts Donald Trump tried to find couldn't exist.
The clumsy choices with which the president closed his four-year period must of course not erase the correctness of many of his intuitions and the concreteness of many of the issues he has identified in recent years.
The Trumpian themes remain, as well as the "people" to whom the outgoing president has been able to speak better than any other politician in recent years.
The sense of alienation felt by an ignored and ostracized part of America remains – and will continue to be one of the most important political factors of the coming years. That America has the right to be represented and in this sense it will be sacrosanct that some Republican candidates try to inherit Trump's role as primary interlocutors of that kind of world.
On the other hand, it is more difficult, at this point, for important members of the party to choose to directly claim the legacy of the figure of Trump. In a certain sense, the acceleration induced by the events of January 6 even reunited the party by resolving the conflict that was starting between Trumpians and non-Trumpians, in a generalized repositioning in the sense of an "emancipation" from the figure of Trump.
The question therefore is to bring Trump's legacy – in terms of themes, not of personality – back into the internal democracy track of the Republican Party which has all the tools to allow a healthy and fruitful debate and to rework the positive aspects of the last four years n an updated policy proposal.
The real problem for Republicans could come from outside the eventual reconsolidation of Trumpian activism of the strictest observance into an autonomous protesting force with third party ambitions. It would be a disaster, because it would transform Trumpism from a major project to a majority vocation that led Donald to the presidency into a "fringe" movement, this time truly unpresentable, and above all useless for any constructive purpose – a movement that could aspire to nothing but to be an element of disturbance and sabotage of the political and electoral prospects of the Gop.
The Republican Party certainly does not exhaust in itself conservative political action – which is expressed in many forms, associations, think tanks , radios, newspapers, grassroots movements – but the electoral tool of the conservatives remains the Republican Party. Anyone who thinks that conservatism would benefit from splits and “third party” adventures is making a fatal mistake and preparing the best gift for Democrats and liberals .
The work to be done immediately is to try to bring the Trump presidency back from the dimension of "exceptionalism" which concurrently enhancers and demonizers have conferred on it to one of normality.
Let's try to remember Trump as "a president", as the "forty-fifth president of the United States". Above all, we recognize how the mandate he received in 2016 was no different from the one bestowed by voters on every other Republican president – that of being a temporary embodiment of a centuries-old political history whose significance transcends individual personalities. It is only in this way that an objective assessment of Donald Trump's actual work will be possible, of his mistakes – which have not been lacking – but also of the many right and useful things that have prompted many of us to support the reasons for his re-election. and which still make us look at his administration as a whole as a positive page and undoubtedly superior to that of Barack Obama.
Starting from these bases we can move forward, bearing in mind that the next deadlines are not far off. In less than two years there will be an opportunity to recapture Congress and every day is precious.
The post A bad ending risks undermining the legacy of a successful presidency. But the “Trumpian” themes will remain appeared first on Atlantico Quotidiano .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL http://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/un-brutto-finale-rischia-di-compromettere-il-lascito-di-una-presidenza-di-successo-ma-i-temi-trumpiani-resteranno/ on Tue, 12 Jan 2021 04:51:00 +0000.