The Magical Thinking of the Anti-Trump Left
Stop hoping for the scandal that will bring down the president
For me, no image hangs over the past 18 months of American politics like a certain Mike Lukovich cartoon from back in August 2015. A newspaper title screams, “TRUMP EATS BALD EAGLE: WON’T APOLOGIZE!” The woman reading it says to her husband, “Expect another poll bounce…”
As the campaign dragged on, that cartoon soon fused with a childhood memory of James the Red Engine (of Thomas the Tank Engine fame), huffing and puffing his way uphill while crying out, “Will the top never come?”
From the time Donald Trump announced his presidency, liberal America has been waiting for the gaffe, the misstep, the revelation that will cause the scales to fall from Trump supporters’ eyes, when they’ll finally see that he’s a cheat, a scoundrel, a small-attention-span bully in pursuit of being the most powerful man in the land.
The past year and a half has born witness a litany of liberal exasperation with the seeming lack of any reaction to the nonsense spouting from Trump, from the campaign-kickoff rendering of Mexicans as “murderers and rapists” to mocking John McCain’s war record to blood coming out of Megyn Kelly’s “whatever” to all but starting a dick-measuring contest in the midst of a Republican debate.
Let’s not forget the Access Hollywood tape, quotes from which I still see splashed across my Facebook wall from time to time, either to remind us once again that “This isn’t normal!” or to take solace in the utter inability of our President to serve as a role model to our children. Surely, surely, that was where it would all end.
And then the Russians! The Clinton campaign certainly didn’t forget them, harping on potential ties between the Russians and Trumpians to a degree that far outstripped the likelihood that this would be a deciding issue for any Republicans not deeply ensconced within the national security complex.
By the time the campaigning drew to a close, Clinton campaign advertising was betting hard (and understandably) on reminding voters that Trump was unfit for the Presidency, with reporters musing about which of his many rhetorical sins he’d be condemned for as a coup de grace. The rest, as they say…
And yet the magical thinking still exists: maybe this next thing will do Trump in. It’s a line of thought that has persisted too long after the election. The potential damage of a Trump presidency to our friends, our country, and our institutions (not to mention much of the rest of the world, depending on how much the generals and ex-generals can restrain things), makes it all too easy to seize on each new bombshell revelation as the thing — the thing — that will finally tip the balance and bring an end to the nightmare.
Take the recent release of Trump’s 2005 tax records, obtained by journalist David Cay Johnston and parsed by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. Is there something there of interest? Sure. Trump will be hemmed in politically from hacking apart the Alternative Minimum Tax when that’s the only thing that led him to pay a sizeable $31+ million (instead of far less) on his $153 million income (even after deductions).
But given that the dominant narrative pushed in the absence of evidence -What’s he hiding?! — was that Trump might have been paying no taxes whatsoever, most casual news-perusers riding the Trump train or otherwise disinclined to join #TheResistance won’t see this as a stunning example of disingenuousness. The most damaging aspect may be that he only earned $150 million despite his claims of being a billionaire, but that’s pretty weak as far as damning revelations go.
The Russian allegations are likewise tantalizing because even if the chance of some grand, overarching conspiracy is small, the profound and immense implications for the United States make us all the more willing to hope that each new Russia-related revelation means this is it!
Yet unless an incontrovertible smoking gun — maybe even a pair of them — comes to light, it’s hard to see what the Trump administration can’t handle with selective firings, obfuscation, hand-waving, and vitriol. Or what possible scandal could unfold that Congressional Republicans — here’s looking at you, Paul Ryan — wouldn’t sweep under the rug as they try to kneecap the Affordable Care Act and chase the unicorn of killing social welfare . . . I mean, enacting entitlement reforms.
Barring an actual empirical test of his “shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue” remark, or an out-of-the-blue decision that he’s simply fed up with the Presidency, Trump will be with us at least until 2020. Too many terrible, outrageous, damaging things will happen, and are happening now, for us to waste precious time and energy gushing over each new political moonshot.
For all who don’t want to see him make it to 2024, let’s stay focused on the difficult yet necessary work of limiting damage done in the present rather than losing too much time to magical thinking about how some sudden shock might get things “back to normal.”
Besides, at the end of the day, there’s still Mike Pence waiting in the wings.
P.S. If you wildly disagree with me on the chances that a President Trump will be with us until 2020 — or any of this — write us a reply! I’ll stake a beer on it. Maybe three.
Andrew Leber is a Ph.D. student at Harvard University’s Department of Government. He’s based in Boston.
