More and more, I begin to suspect that only one of the two major parties will survive the next presidential election intact. The names Republican and Democrat may remain, but it seems unlikely — nearly impossible — that the losing party will continue as anything like what it was.
As things stand now, the parties could be described the way the parody history book 1066 and All That described the two sides in England’s 17th century civil war. One side was “wrong but wromantic.” The other was “right but repulsive.”
The Democrats are clearly the wrong but wromantic ones. Nothing their candidates propose would make this country better. Every policy they support has been tried and has failed. Their socialist dreams are a recipe for cultural and economic death. But they provide their followers with the wromance of “making the world a better place,” which may be the six most dangerous words in the English language.
Trump is right but repulsive. Cutting taxes and regulation, appointing judges who follow the Constitution, arming for war but playing for peace — these things improve our lives and strengthen our freedoms every time they’re tried. Plus, his war against the utterly corrupt Democrat-media complex has been a boon to us all.
But even a supporter — and I have become a supporter because of the excellent job he’s done — gets weary of defending his big mouth and his bad behavior. I know, it’s the reason he was elected. He was sent to break the mental chains of the Left’s prissy, hypocritical, oppressive moralizing. Still, a man can retain his courage and his manners at the same time. Trump’s rudeness and boorishness bring us all down to the Left’s level.
So, will Trump’s behavior alienate so many people that they ignore the great economy, the lasting peace, and the restoration of constitutional governance after eight years of Obama’s imperial malfeasance? That’s the Great Question of 2020.
Now, if Trump survives himself and wins, the most likely reason will be the fact that the Left is destructive, unpatriotic, oppressive, and truly un-American. In the aftermath, they will have to ask themselves: How did we blow this against such a man? And I, and every other political observer on earth, will be only too happy to explain it to them. I do not think ignorami like the Squad or even a canny leftist like Nancy Pelosi will survive that reassessment.
Now conversely, if Trump loses, the most likely reason will be his bad behavior. And if the Left gets back in power, I sincerely doubt there will be much of Constitutional America that will survive. They have already shown themselves willing to dispatch the FBI, the CIA, and the IRS to silence and slander their political opponents. They have already demonstrated they can mobilize virtually the entire media in mass deception and coverup as with the Russia collusion hoax and the Kavanaugh sex lie.
Even if they don’t kill the electoral college, pack the Supreme Court, disarm the populace they despise, and declare anti-Democrat speech outside the protection of the First Amendment, they’ll do what they can to make it impossible for the Republican party as it stands to win the White House ever again. The Republicans, having lost due to the very rudeness that helped them win, will be forced to reinvent themselves as gelded European Tories, essentially on the right side of Leftism. That’s where they were heading before Trump came along anyway.
I don’t mean any of this to sound like one of those dire “This-is-the-most-important-election-of-our-lifetimes” rants that pops up every election of our lifetimes. But these tectonic political shifts do occur from time to time, and I suspect one is coming.
Because we are now no longer merely divided between Right and Left. We are divided between Friends of the Founding and the Founding’s Foes. On one side are those who believe our past is great, that our ideas have led us to more power and prosperity than any nation that has ever existed, and that our freedom is a good in itself — that it is well worth tolerating the occasional evil it allows. On the other side are those who imagine they can abandon the philosophy and traditions that got us here and, through some greater goodness within themselves, build a utopian society that has never existed on earth and — spoiler alert — never will.
As a Friend of the Founding, I’m rooting for Trump all the way. Repulsive as he sometimes is, he’s shown himself right about almost everything. I hope that will be enough.