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For sake of argument let's assume no more surprises & Trump leaves Jan 20. He'll be weaker, & much of political press that still thinks in terms of "who's up, who's down" will more or less conflate that w/ gone. But he won't be.
Worth noting that the who's-in, who's-out idea of politics is for some pundits being restored daily by Biden's restoration of an establishment. But it was never an accurate frame, and it's less so now. Trump's weaker, but *Trumpism*'s still strong.
It's been interesting to see establishment pundits rush to declare now that there is now Trumpism, since Trump had no "ideas"--as if ideas are the only measure of a movement and its power.
Another version of magical thinking holds that we don't have to worry about Trump, or Trumpism, anymore because Trump will be prosecuted. Maybe. Let's imagine he's even convicted! That won't kill Trumpism. It'll give it a martyr.
(That doesn't mean I'm opposed to prosecution of Trump. All for it! But I don't imagine it's any kind of slam dunk or a solution to the fascism he made visible and stronger.)
As a journalist with a couple decades on the God beat, I'm interested, too, in what will be--if precedent holds--a quick secular assumption that Christian nationalism has been defeated. Not at all, alas.
The demise of American fundamentalism has been declared by the secular press about every 5-10 years since the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925. What's different this time is the awful transformation Trumpism has wrought within white evangelicalism.
Bad news: Trumpism licensed the drive for power within Christian nationalism and a much more explicit embrace of white supremacy. It's just plain meaner. Good news: Absent presidential legitimation, that meanness *may* erode its base.
More good news: As a longtime journalist covering the right, I'm pretty confident that Trump's base will erode, significantly. More bad news: It will still remain vast--and malleable. Fascism is in one sense surprisingly flexible in its pursuit of self-justifying myth.
Biden's restoration of liberalism won't be enough, & that's as true for anti-fascist centrists as for the left. The restoration alone won't put fascism back in its box. Respect the power of the right even as we revile it, & organize accordingly. Build beautiful.
I don't think the antidote to fascism's fetishization of strength is counter-strength. I think it's beauty, loveliness, care. That's what made the New Deal work--not its elites, not its strength, but the loveliness of its vision, the beauty of its commitment to care.
In response to critiques of FDR: Agreed, pretty much across the board. No hero of mine. That's why I said New Deal, the work of millions, not FDR, one politician. History deceives when it attributes the work of many--always complex--to just one.
