"The Charbor Chronicles": Robert Reich Predicts That the End of Trump & MAGA Is Coming Soon (But That's Really Hard to Believe)

Saw this article by Robert Reich some days ago, and wanted to post it ever since.

Here, Robert Reich makes the case that the end of the Trump & MAGA political dominance of this country is very near an end.

For the most part, I almost always agree with Reich. He makes some excellent points and knows what he is talking about in most matters. Indeed, I feel that he may be right about the end of Trump and MAGA, and that we need to keep the faith that this political nightmare and fascist turn of the country is indeed merely temporary.

That said, there is one aspect of Reich's approach which I usually find myself having a difficult time to believe. And it has to do with his belief - and seeming certainty - that Trumpism and MAGA dominance of American politics is about to end. He always seems so optimistic about it.

Perhaps I have allowed the whole tragic rise of Trumpism over American politics to get me down or make me a cynic. The thing is, there were signs - and I mean clear and visible signs - which were pointing to this country taking the dark turn that it has going back many decades. I remember hearing the first arguments that the country was taking a decidedly fascist turn back in the late 1980's and early 1990's, but that the architects had learned some lessons. So they would be extremely patient, would allow fascism to creep into mainstream American life with painstakingly slowly. Little by little, in increments in which most people would hardly really notice, the country would become a totalitarian nation.

It may have begun before I was born, particularly under Nixon. But it was under Ronald Reagan that it truly began to take a serious foothold and advance. He was extremely popular, and the older I get, the more I feel that the "Reagan Revolution" was a political Trojan Horse which this country willingly allowed itself to believe in. The wealth addicts and corporate culture were allowed access into the shining city on the hill, and they lowered the gates with words like "deregulation" and claiming that they were merely cutting some of the red tape in order to allow businesses to flourish. Generally speaking, Americans bought all of this hook, line, and sinker. What that translated to was a steady attack on regular workers, or the middle class. Nobody outright proclaimed that this was what they were doing. Indeed, they were patient, and the changes came slowly enough that not enough people recognized what was happening. But it was during the Reagan years that wages stagnated and unions were largely discredited and systematically attacked. The standard of living among Americans, which as I understood it had peaked in 1973, began to decline.

Yet, the 1980's still felt like relatively good times for the United States, which is part of the reason why most people did not notice some of the first real signs of the decline to come. We were still easily the world's leading superpower, and we still had a fairly solid reputation around most of the world. Also, our standard of living was still quite high. So nobody noticed.

There was another thing that happened under Reagan which also served as a distraction. My father kept talking about it as a dangerous precedent, constantly referring to a news story which he had seen years earlier, at the beginning of Reagan's presidency. In this story, a woman who had survived the Holocaust spoke in horror about the rise of blatant and ugly nationalism in the United States, by which she meant mindless flag-waving and jingoism. Americans would chant "USA # 1!" or simply "U-S-A!" and would mindlessly repeat sentiments about this being the "greatest country in the world" or how we are the "leaders of the free world" or "God's country." My father also felt that the pledge of allegiance was hardly innocent, indoctrinating children with words and concepts at an age when they were too young to understand them, but it reinforced this notion, now popularly accepted as American exceptionalism. Reagan himself repeatedly buttressed these exceptionalist notions, referring to the United States as the "shining city on a hill" which the rest of the world could view as an example to follow, and probably to look on with more than a little envy. Indeed, people mistook (perhaps naively, or perhaps more cynically) this frankly manufactured nationalism for a healthy patriotism, so it was difficult to caution people against it. After all, what is wrong with good old-fashioned patriotism? What, do you hate America and our freedoms?

Meanwhile, we armed ourselves to the teeth. We grew more militant, and another thing my father noticed, and woke me up to, is that we seemed as a nation to grow hungry for another big war to help put memories of Vietnam behind us. That focus meant that instead of learning some valuable lessons in humility based on our often historically sour experiences in Southeast Asia, we simply needed a big and decisive victory somewhere. The first military engagements in this spirit, in Grenada and Panama, received massive popular support, but hardly counted as a big war. Enter Saddam Hussein and Iraq. Finally, a big war, one which we won quickly and decisively and easily. We celebrated, and there were whispers that we could finally put Vietnam behind us.

Back at home, our rights were increasingly under attack, although this was done quietly, and without too much uproar. Things still seemed mostly good after Reagan, so many hardly noticed. For the most part, "Reagan's Revolution," if you will, continued uninterrupted for the four years under the first President Bush. Then came Clinton, but he was referred to as "Republican light." He brought the Democrats to the right, and the Republicans were forced to go farther right themselves, becoming increasingly far-right. True, the 2000 election was startling to many in it's divisiveness, and the new red-blue divide of the nation. The way that the election was decided, and particularly who was doing the deciding, and how they all seemed allied to one side in particular, left a bad taste in the mouths of many. Again, though, things were going fairly well in the country, so most people more or less let it go. Our politics now clearly seemed more distorted than ever before, although things in the country were good enough that most people simply did not notice.

Everyone noticed September 11th, however. This was the first really major domestic Pearl Harbor on the mainland, the contiguous 48 states. And it brought a brief unity, although I suspect that this was a bit forced. Indeed, more and more, I feel that the way things were popularly portrayed in the media was not indicative of reality. But one thing which almost everyone seemed to understand was that September 11th was an act of war, and we surely would reciprocate.

Since then, of course, we have had other bitter war experiences not all that dissimilar to Vietnam. I remember people suggesting, apparently seriously, back in the 1990's into the early 2000's that it was less likely that we would experience "another Vietnam" in the Middle East. After all, that was not thick and dense jungle, where guerrilla fighters could lie in wait and ambush us. The desert had no trees and few hiding places. We could basically just bomb the crap out of them, which is something which, if memory serves correctly, we also tried in Vietnam. For many, it seemed like there was a desire to repeat the spirit that had taken over the country after the first successful war against Saddam's Iraq. Let's go to war again. Let them know who's boss! Allow America's military to dominate once again.

Only we didn't. Indeed, the second war in Iraq turned into a quagmire, as did our involvement in Afghanistan. Both of those wars looked like quick and easy victories at first, but this illusion was shattered rather quickly. The fighting was costly in every sense, and it just dragged on and on. As it turns out, both of those wars eclipses Vietnam as our longest war.

Worse still was that these wars were incredibly unpopular around the world. We were condemned by traditional allies and enemies alike. That did not sit well with most Americans. The political divide in the country grew more serious. The canyon seemed to be deepening.

Domestically, there seemed to be the clearest signs yet of a lurch towards greater authoritarianism. The PATRIOT Act enhanced government surveillance over the lives of ordinary American citizens. The proposed (but never outright developed) PATRIOT Act II went even farther and would have given the government the right to revoke the citizenship of any American who was deemed to have been too critical of the government. We were coming dangerously close to some aspects of fascism.

Then came the near economic collapse, and the rise of Obama to the White House. Briefly, there was another spirit of hopefulness. Yet Obama was not the agent of change which many people claimed. His first term seemed to many like a continuation of George W. Bush's presidency. His second term was defined by Executive Actions which may have seemed necessary, but which alarmed and eventually justified similar actions by a Republican president soon to come. Meanwhile, habeas corpus, a constitutional right, was compromised during the Obama years. Government surveillance remained, and a program of spying on other countries (notably allies) begun by Bush was continued and increased under Obama. Also, there were those drone strikes. And mass deportation of illegal immigrants.

Were Americans becoming alarmed? Some were, yes. But most were passive, and maybe even hardly noticed some of these alarming trends.

All of that ended with the political rise of Trumpism and MAGA. Suddenly, it felt like the rise of fascism was no longer theoretical. Now, it was happening right before our eyes, and tens of millions of Americans not only were not outraged, but were feverish in their support of it.

That is a brief and oversimplified history, admittedly. Yet it is where we stand now. There are tens of millions of Americans for whom any decline is systematically the fault of the other party. Some still feel that this country is exceptional. Many Americans still feel that it is the freest land in the world, and that the rest of the world is longing to have what we have got. Any criticisms are simply the product of jealousy. The same easy dismissals can and are being employed domestically, when inequality being mentioned as a serious problem is dismissed as jealousy and wanting "free things" and "government handouts" instead of rolling up your sleeves and getting work done.

Also, Americans have grown used to seeing their rights diminished and even attacked. When we normalized it, as we generally did after September 11th, then these limitations begin to seem like "common sense" to some people, even if they go against the notions of freedom which the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were supposed to guarantee to all Americans. Now, after many decades, Americans seem to have grown both dumber and less tolerant, and so they hardly seem outraged when someone like, say, President George W. Bush suggested that Americans had too many freedoms or fail to understand the real dangers to our freedoms and outright fascistic turn when President Trump banning some topics or claiming that criticisms of him or his presidency should be outlawed.

Indeed, one of the most infuriating things about MAGA support for Trump is how quickly and completely they alter their arguments. A little more than a year ago, they were yelling about lowering the price of gas and groceries, or releasing the Epstein Files. Now, the supporters echo Trump's baseless claims that he indeed did lower the price of gas and groceries, or seem to believe Trump when he suggests that things like "affordability" or even the Epstein Files are a Democratic hoax.

That's where we are right now, folks.

And sorry, but I don't think that's going away anytime soon, even if Trump somehow does disappear tomorrow. Our problems run far deeper, which is why I feel so pessimistic and cynical. I would love to believe in Reich's assurances that Trump and MAGA are about to go away. Somehow, though, I just cannot bring myself to believe it.