Though I badly misjudged and believed there was a sane backbone in the Republican Party that would shut down Trump’s bid for the nomination, I have an extremely difficult time believing he can win November 8th; the country just isn’t that crazy, and going long against the common sense and decency of the American people is always a bad bet.
But: That strange sick pastiche of nutjobs who are now the Republican base — the evangelicals, the white supremacists, those wackos obsessed with the caliber of their pistol — are not going to be graceful losers. Evangelicals are intoxicated by the prospect of repealing the Johnson amendment and ending abortion, the gun nuts actually believe the NRA’s serial lies about Clinton’s desire to seize all their weapons, and the white supremacists truly believe their day is at hand, are even now are ironing their sheets in anticipation of the big invite to the inauguration.
If the prospect of a Republican base energized by victory is frightening, then imagine — if you can — what they are going to be like when they are enraged and humiliated by a broad defeat.
People like Tony Perkins will ramp-up the bellicose lie that good, decent, godly people are persecuted because they have to treat gays with ordinary decency. The sale of guns will increase sharply. The white supremacists will probably resume their outright terror campaigns against Jews, Catholics, Blacks … anybody who isn’t a white Protestant.
That is what they have done in the past in this country, and that is what has happened throughout history, all over the world, when a culturally dominant group finds its influence declining.
As I have said in the past, Hillary Clinton is a venal, unimaginative bureaucrat; expect no more from her than you’d expect from any other caretaker. She does not, at least, pose the existential threat to America that Donald Trump does. But Trump’s defeat does not end our problems; it will confront us with maddened loonies, a poisonous cohort convinced their triumph was stolen from them and no less determined to frustrate governance than it has been during the 8-years of the Obama administration — and no less willing to take down the country to do it.
Recall the myth about the multi-headed hydra — cut off one head, more appear. So, too, our prospect post-election.