#trumpism

#trumpism

Ever since Donald Trump's election in 2016, liberals and the left have struggled to understand the meaning of his rise, and that of "Trumpism," for American politics. When Trump entered the political scene, he was hard to take seriously. In his first campaign, he seemed-initially, at least-to be a zombie headline straight from the New York Post 's"Page Six": a faded reality-TV star, a bankrupt real estate speculator, a huckster, a creep, and a punch line.

Trumpism wants to capture your attention. And it won't hesitate to colonize, with the approval of its leader, all the world's main information outlets, streaming media and video game platforms. Emerging from the effervescent magma of the MAGA universe, a group of powerful businessmen are in orbit around Trump, fattening his businesses and helping him expand the reach of his ultraconservative rhetoric.

My brother is almost 90, a Repub for years, and a committed Trumpie from the beginning. He knows he is looking at his sunset and will die a Trumpie. He dismisses, rationalizes, or denies every critical fact about Trump. No fact, no failure, nor any reversal of policy by any court causes him pause. He only watches FOX. He has successfully alienated his wife, two very adult children, siblings, relatives, and friends who are not Trumpies.

Fascism is supposed to look a certain way: black-clad, uniformed, synchronised and menacing. It is not supposed to look like an overweight president who can't pronounce acetaminophen and who bumbles, for a full minute, about how he would have renovated the UN's New York headquarters with marble floors, rather than a terrazzo. But as Umberto Eco remarked in his timeless essay on identifying the eternal nature of fascism: Life is not that simple.

Tillis faced pressure to support the 'Big Beautiful Bill' but chose to speak against Medicaid cuts, knowing it would harm North Carolina's funding, hospitals, and communities.

I didn't wake up today thinking I would write a thank-you to The Atlantic, but after reading David Brooks's 'Everything We Once Believed In,' I feel compelled.

"Buckley is often remembered as the architect of the modern conservative movement... Yet today, almost two decades since Buckley's death in 2008, the conservative landscape looks different."

Just a day after joining his fellow Cabinet members in offering obsequious praise to President Trump, Mike Waltz has landed in a dismally familiar position: out of favor. Waltz found out what so many of Trump's courtiers over the years have learned: you may shamelessly suck up, sell out your principles, betray your values, and flip-flop on all that you hold dear in the name of Trump, but it still won't stop him from dumping you in a maximally embarrassing way.

Ron DeSantis once appeared to have a strong chance in the Republican primary, but lacked charisma and retail political skills, ultimately failing after considerable funding.