Hello Amee, welcome, thanks for participating here.
amee wrote:I don't like the nebulous term "trumpism", as what happened when he was elected represents something that has nothing to do with Trump himself.
You have a point. Initially I started this topic with the title "Trump" but after the election I changed it to cover a wider topic. If it has little to do with Trump, I don't now for sure. The election and the amount of support is clearly a phenomenon. Over time the discussion has gone into conservatism, policies on race (also split off), the mass media, Liberals, globalism and so on. It's just the way it goes with political threads. But the main idea was to discuss anything involving philosophy and politics espoused by Donald Trump and his most trusted, including the reactionary movement against it. It's a bit too big of a topic in the end though.
The fact that he was elected at all is already a victory, because the point for some of us who voted for him was simply to throw a monkey wrench into the existing political system, which had forgotten the purpose of governance and has abandoned the majority of Americans, especially the traditional Democrats.
That is for me the reason I was reasonably content with the outcome. There are dangers of course but hope and change only truly come with increased danger, I believe. So the risk might be worth it. Life has always been about risks, not to mention insanities.
I agree that it would be nice if, aside from successfully being a monkey wrench in the corrupt political system, something of substance could actually be built from the chaos. But, at least when I voted for Trump, I knew that substantial change would be just the icing on the cake, if Trump won at all.
While I didn't vote, being a Dutch citizen, and I might have voted for a 3rd party if I had participated, your words ring true. The question is if the system and as such society can handle the wrench. It might become overheated or at least the anti-movement would. It might become utterly nonsensical if it wasn't already there already. But the ones who voice fears for the consequences of chaos, anger, suspicions and emotions riding high inside a society do have a point.
There's still hope. If we could tap into the talent you outline in this article, that might help. What would be even better is a non-partisan group that reshaped the dates and hopelessly divided two-party landscape into one that could actually function and be effective in actually governing this country.
The short term goal would be the end of the Democratic party. It needs to crack open. As for the Republicans, I think as a party it already fractionated and rotted since Tea Party times. Since Palin. It's only going to be worse for them when Trump is done.