Whatever was true four, five, or six years ago, in 2022 Trumpism cannot be regarded as some anomalous strain in U.S. politics. What began as deviation has become mainstream. What once could be minimized as a recessive tendency within the Republican Party has become the dominant one.
Facing that reality is the way to prevent it from doing worse harm. Only recognition of that unwelcome new reality can change behaviors across American politics—not only those of Trump supporters, but also those of Trump opponents.
Biden won a great many votes in 2020 from people who did not especially support the Democratic agenda but hoped that a Biden presidency would restore politics-as-normal in the United States. They hoped that the defeat of Trump would jolt his party back toward accepting the rules of the democratic game. (I know because I was one of those who hoped so. I did not fully believe so, but I fiercely hoped so.)
Those hopes have been brutally dashed since January 6, 2021. Trumpism is not the repudiated past of the Republican Party. It’s the party’s near-term future. If Republicans gain control of one or both houses of Congress in 2022, and in almost any state where they wield power, Trumpism is the country’s near-term future.
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