The anti-anti-Trumpers are back in Egypt–they’re living in denial. Having supported DeSantis during the primaries, they are back on side. Trump 2.0, they say, will be the same as the first version. Sure, he’ll be a little rough with his mouth, but he’s no threat to liberal democracy. The guardrails will hold. They always have, and they always will.
That was to be expected. What scares me is the prospect that the progressive wing of the Democratic Party might agree. I think some of them view the first Trump term as an age of clarity in which the party was driven to the left on issues we now refer to as “wokeness.” One more strong shove from the right, they think, and the party will be theirs. It’s worth the risk, right?
Like the AATs. they lack imagination. The best case scenario for Trump 2.0 is a scatterbrained Viktor Orban; the worst is Putin. And he’ll be coming first for the woke left, not for people like me. He will do his best to shut them up for good. He may shoot them down in the street if they demonstrate against him. Then what?
It’s not worth the risk.