None of this is to say that Trumpism will disappear, but he was a master at selling illusions – and few have his skillset
Liberal and conservative commentators are fast converging on a prediction: Donald Trump might be gone, but Trumpism is here to stay. Of course, the former are anxious that a smooth, smart authoritarian will pick up where Trump left off and make the US join the rightwing populist international of autocrats like Modi, Erdogan and Orbán; the latter are hoping for a Republican party somehow dedicated to an “American worker” who we ought to imagine as a conservative nationalist. Both sides overestimate Trumpism and – still, after all these years – underestimate Trump himself.
Conventional wisdom has it that figures like Arkansas senator Tom Cotton, Missouri senator Josh Hawley, or even a TV personality like Tucker Carlson are auditioning to claim the Trumpist movement. There is little doubt that the movement is potent: after five years, plenty of citizens deeply identify as Trumpists; and a whole folklore has been built around Maga. The Republican party has every reason to deploy this movement against the Biden administration and combine Mitch McConnell’s Machiavellianism from above with more or less manipulated grass-roots pressure from below, strung along by Fox and talk radio which will never forget that polarization is big business. After all, such a dual strategy – Republican establishment plus Tea party – already served to sabotage crucial parts of the Obama presidency.
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Source: Elections - theguardian.com
