Long Live the American Populist Plutocrat Christian Party

The Republican Party is dead!  Long live the American Populist, Plutocrat Christian Party! All hail Trump and Musk!

The results are in and Donald Trump has won a decisive victory over Kamala Harris.  I wonder if he thinks this election was stolen?  He didn’t have a lot of faith in the process.  But as usual, the polls were pretty far off and here we are with another four years of Trump.

 

I regard this as the death knell of the Republican Party.  The Trump platform (to the extent there is one) has little in common with the republican values of the last 80 years.  The most notable figures in republican administrations from Reagan to Bush lined up against Trump to no avail.  The pendulum has swung violently away from the traditional two-party American system.

 

So, what does Trump represent?  What is this party that he now has so completely dominated that its political class is terrified of offending him?  How is it that a majority of Americans lined up behind a man who lies with each breath, who brags without ceasing, and who is so thin-skinned that he viciously attacks and demeans anyone who offends him?

 

Like so many things in politics, it is both simple and complex.  It is simple because a large number of people in the USA are feeling unsettled and suspicious of the government and the so-called ruling elites. 

 

It is simple because globalization and neo-liberalism have been a huge disappointment and have never delivered on their promises of increasing prosperity for all and peace through economic cooperation.

 

It is simple because the rapid pace of cultural change – non-traditional families, new norms of sexuality, homosexuality and gay marriage, transgender issues, abortion, gender equality, continuing racial struggles – has frightened a large part of the USA, especially those who subscribe to traditional religious doctrine, and created a massive backlash.

 

It is simple because a significant part of the population will never vote for a democratic candidate and is betting that a Trump presidency, for all of its chaos and drama, will make them richer than they are today.

 

It is simple because most Americans feel superior to the rest of the world and hate being entangled in organizations, treaties, or other encumbrances with countries they neither respect nor trust.

 

It is simple because a world broken by so many ills (war, climate change, economic failure) is causing more and more desperate people to cross our borders to chase the American Dream and it scares the hell out of people for so many reasons despite the fact that every one of them has ancestors that did the same thing.

 

It is simple because 100 years of Hollywood has brainwashed us into believing that only an apparently tough, no-holds-barred, extremely cocky kind of guy can protect American interests.

It is simple because we have allowed individuals to acquire so much wealth that a single person with a huge ego can significantly alter an election.

It is simple because many Americans are still unable to get their minds around a woman leading the country.

 

It is simple because the pandemic brought a couple years of high inflation, and, ultimately, Americans vote their pocketbook.

 

And finally, it is complex because none of those simple things are really simple at all, and the American public is not educated enough to understand the challenges the USA and the rest of the world currently face and that humanity always evolves in a way that requires new thinking, and their first instinct is to make a bunker of the USA and try to keep the rest of the world and its problems out.

 

So, now we have a coalition of disgruntled Americans backed by a growing bro cabal of tech plutocrats who believe they are the only possible future saviors.  How do you come up with a name for this party? Admittedly, my choice is a bit wordy and cumbersome.  But did I mention that the whole thing is a bit complex?