Robert Kagan is back already
Robert Kagan’s doomsaying article about a Trump dictatorship and The Atlantic‘s“If Trump Wins” series sounded loud alarms. And then some. I cautioned Monday that overdoing the shock treatment can backfire. Along with the warnings people need hope and plans for action. Kagan got that message from his readers and is back today with an attempt at offering some, reluctantly. His heart isn’t in it.
It’s not that we didn’t know what to do, Kagan begins. It’s that we didn’t do it when chances were better for stopping Trump. He offers “several things people could do to save the country but almost certainly won’t do, because they selfishly refuse to put their own ambitions at risk to save our democracy.” Feeling hopey yet?
For one, Never-Trump forces could throw all their support behind Nikki Haley as the least odious Republican presidential candidate. Probably won’t work, but go for it, Kagan suggests. A majority of the GOP are committed cultists. A smaller faction wants Trump as their best chance of beating Joe Biden. A third group, about six percent, say they’ll support Trump unless he’s convicted. So good luck, Nikki.
The other option is less direct but has a better chance of success. Raise doubts about Trump’s electability. “The way to do that is to warn those Republicans still capable of listening that a Trump presidency really does pose a risk to our freedom and democracy and the Constitution.,” Kagan argues. That’s what he, The Atlantic, and “sleepwalking into dictatorship” Liz Cheney are doing.
Republicans own freedom. It is their worship word. Anat Shenker-Osorio argues that Democrats have to take it back. Freedom is a universal American value. Democrats have to run on it. The Lincoln Project needs to take up that message too. Which side are you on?
“In short, the way to beat Trump is to make him seem unelectable, and the way to make him seem unelectable is to show that he is unacceptable,” Kagan offers:
Trump’s dictatorial tendencies and open disdain for the Constitution can become his greatest vulnerabilities — they might be his only vulnerabilities — if sufficiently highlighted for the American voter, and he and his advisers likely know it. Trump’s bizarre assertion that he would be a dictator only on “Day One” of his presidency to “close the border” was, believe it or not, an attempt to deflect the charge. (But what if it takes two days?) Democrats have gotten mileage in downballot races by painting their Republican opponents as lawbreaking, MAGA radicals. Trump is aware that he needs to hold on to some normal, non-cultist Republicans — that is why he has taken a more moderate position on abortion than much of the rest of the party. Trump is nothing if not a shrewd politician (the people who persist in claiming he’s an idiot should have a talk with themselves), and he knows he cannot win the general election on cult votes alone.
When Trump refused to deny he would act as a dictator with Sean Hannity at his Fox News town hall, he did it deliberately with a “wry humor,” Adam Serwer told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes Wednesday evening [timestamp 10:50], to both bait opponents and maintain a thin sliver of deniability. His Day One pronouncement was a signal to his base of authoritarian followers that he would indeed rule as dictator. But many of his close acolytes are less reserved and talk like “low-level technicians on the Death Star.” Their gleeful anticipation of a Trump dictatorship needs more disinfecting sunlight.
There are many Americans who would run from him if they see a hint of Trump ruling as a dictator, strategist David Plouffe told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes Wednesday evening [timestamp 8:50]. People like Kash Patel are actively promising that a second Trump administration would investigate opponents and target the oppressed. Trump himself has said he would terminate provisions of the Constitution that did not serve his needs.
Taking a page from the dictator’s playbook, Kagan explains, Trump is already trying to inoculate himself against those charges with an “I know you are but what am I?” strategy of declaring Joe Biden the real dictator.
In time-honored fashion, Trump is going for the biggest lie. His goal is to delegitimize the trials and convince Republican voters that he is the victim of corruption and abuse of the judicial system. He has just begun making that case, but he is going to bang it like a bass drum for the next year.
Can he succeed in establishing this as the narrative? You bet he can, and for the reasons outlined in the previous essay: As he becomes the presumptive nominee, the vast Republican campaign apparatus will be at his disposal, putting out his line on an hourly basis.
What that six percent with Trump unless he’s convicted need to hear ahead of the primaries from Republicans still keeping the faith — and not from Democrats and Post columnists — is that they are right, Kagan believes, “that the Biden administration is not a dictatorship, that the trials are not an abuse of power, and that if Trump is convicted, justice will have been done,’ Kagan writes. That “would not take a lot of speeches, or well-placed interviews, or appearances on Sunday shows, by the right people to change the conversation.”
Imagine if the wing of the Republican Party that still believes in defending the Constitution identified itself that way, as “Constitutional Republicans” implacably opposed to the man who blatantly attempted to subvert the Constitution and has indicated his willingness to do so again as president.
But don’t hold your breath. It will require courage in short supply among Republicans.
Many people responded to my last essay by insisting that a majority of Americans oppose Trump, and they are right. But the way our system works today, that popular majority is prevented from coalescing. Many blame the electoral college or the two-party prejudice built into our system, and they might well be right. But, folks, are we going to fix these problems before November? The question is how best to bring this majority together in a coalition of Democrats and Constitutional Republicans to prevent a dictatorship this coming year. Afterward, we can look at reforming the system. First, the system has to survive.
And for that to happen Democrats have to deliver.