Let's work backwards from the desired outcome: bad election cycles for American Republicans. For that, I figure the time has come for good liberals to support the candidacy of Donald Trump.
It's March 24, 2023, and I've spent a whole week grinding my teeth and wallowing in still-simmering anger over the Iraq War. Yes, the American Democrats went along with it. But, in foreign policy, American Republicans are like a more-aggressive older brother, who's constantly egging on the younger one (Democrats) into trouble. Little Brother is constantly trying to gain his respect - American Democrats just can't get people to believe they're "tough" and good protectors. They fear being called weaklings and pacifists, so the Republicans can always goad them into military budgets and military adventures.
Republicans new attitude towards disease-fighting makes them a global infection risk, as well. Then, they have a similar "bad influence older brother" relationship with Democrats when it comes to financial regulation - proving to be a third kind of danger to the entire globe.
And I read the news, today, oh, boy, and decided that the worm has turned: Donald Trump is on his way down. The media would all hate that.
They want conflict. That's why they love wars. No story sells more newspapers than war, of course, but conflict is always better than cooperation; they want a fight, every time.
They amplified Trump, unreasonably, all through 2016, precisely because they were so sure Trump was going to lose. They wanted to buck him up, keep some sense of fight and drama going all the way. (It's clear that some, later, felt a bit bad about it.)
Well, now it's me, adopting the same position. But I'm in a way better position to hold that position, so to speak. Those concerned that Trump can't put up a good fight had one pussy tape and some ugly history in 2016. I've got four coming indictments.
The "ugly history and pussy tape" was not even a negative for his base, in 2016. They celebrated his multiple wives and mistresses, his golden apartment, as chest-thumping shows of power, very attractive!
But Trump supporters, above all, are authoritarians, and if you haven't read Dr. Bob Altemeyer's wonderful, super-short work on that personality type, please just stop and click on that link. Bob, very retired and in his 80s, is still putting up posts, most recently on the mentality of anti-vaxxers, but read his free little book.
Trump is betting on the notion that he represents "authority", via his dominating personality and popularity. But, I now feel sure that the slow, giant, majesty of real authority, the thousands of people and institutions of the US Justice System, is grinding away at that sense that Trump is the "real" authority.
Trump supporters are affected by theatre of authority; that's why he always wanted parades, costumes, troops in the streets. Now, all that's turned against him. One perp-walk is exciting theatre: four of them are just the drag that the justice system is for poor people. The slow, dull, court system will grind down the enthusiasm of Trump, and supporters, both.
And he is losing psychological power. It's multiple articles now: Trump is losing evangelicals, the base of his base. He has already lost the Murdochs - who will come back if he gets the primary votes, but losing them at all is significant. They have no ideology but success. If they figure Trump is done, it's probably because they know their audience well.
On social media, he's backed himself into a corner: he can't accept his Twitter account back, admitting that his Truth Social replacement is a failure. (And that's failing harder than ever, this week.) Even if he does go back, Twitter itself has been diminished.
I wanted to get this post out before the first indictment, because it may prove a turning point. He got up this morning, and decided to double down on calling for violence. Everybody who knows anything about Authorit-AH, knows that you don't give an order that even might not be obeyed. Because, when you give the order, and nobody shows up, your authority is diminished ever after.
That's a bolder prediction, chancy, but if I'm right, it'll only be a matter of days before the headlines are all about Trump's downward slide. Trump has never been more than two rally-turnouts in a row away from a "falling star" narrative; and authoritarians will vanish when they perceive a fall.
Part of my reason for coming to this today, was the response to his first call for violence: multiple supporters warning each other "it's a trap". That's your proof that this is not the Civil Rights Movement of 1965. John Lewis and MLK were willing to go to jail. They embraced trouble with the authorities, knew they would be validated in the end.
The Jan 6 folks and our Convoy, by contrast, always figured the police would be on their side, did not expect to be arrested. Did not expect to be on the wrong side of Authority. The cops were supposed to ignore the effete elites, provide "Real Policing" that protected and supported their side. Very, very few Jan6 arrestees were defiant in court, few made speeches about how they were martyrs and would be proven right by history. Most became submissive in the presence of real authority, as authoritarians do.
Post January-sixth, post-Convoy, the police are ready for them, not about to assume they will be nice protesters, will take no violent crap. I would not want to be a violent protester that an American cop was ready for.
So, I'm thinking the comical scene of Jordan Klepper trying to find a Trump-arrest protester, will be almost repeated when the arrest happens. If not no-showing, then a small enough one that the Trump image of power and fear is broken.
Once his image breaks, it's just downward slide from there on. He only has his image; there's no there there.
And so comes the need to help him. He can still be useful - to American Democrats, and to Republican enemies abroad. He can help us tear up the Republican Party.
What can Trump do, but keep fighting? However bad the odds, his future if he stops running, stops lashing out at competitors, is worse than if he continues. I think he'd continue all the way down.
My bottom of "down" actually comes at the Republican convention next year; it doesn't matter to me which Republican emerges from that, as long as that Republican only takes a battered fraction of the Republican party with him. (99% odds on "him") Trump but missing angry new never-Trumpers that went all the way to the convention opposing him, or more likely just stopped being politically active when he began to dominate the primaries. Just as good, as Trump challenger, who will never, never get the votes of frothing Trump supporters.
And so, we must support. Not with praise, they'd see through that. We must be those liberals that "cry again", insulted and cowed by every single all-caps word-salad he emits on social media or rallies. That will buck his supporters up.
Trump-support comes hard, but for the planet, surely, we can force ourselves. Crippling the Republican party for a couple of their election cycles is worth it.