The Trump Legacy

Last week, former President Donald Trump finally went before the first of many judges we expect him to face over the next few months and years. Many expect that this will put a damper on Trumpism in the United States since the plethora of trials could well put an end to his reelection dreams.

I disagree.

American science fiction writer Robert Heinlein once wrote that you could sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic. Donald Trump is living proof of this truism.

None of Trump’s lies and alleged crimes seem to have put off his core supporters, nor have they emboldened many Republican politicians to withdraw their support or criticize the man.

Trump’s first term led to the legitimization of the current culture wars in the U.S., normalizing overt racism, blurring the lines of corruption and mendacity while diminishing respect for science and fact. This further divided red (Republican) from blue (Democrat) states along cultural, racial, gender, sexual and religious lines with religion being at the core of red state politics.

Many hope that Mr. Trump will lose his re-election bid, so that the U.S. can reverse its recent divisive course. But should he lose, can we really expect this to happen?

I doubt it for a number of reasons. 

First, red state legislatures are beholden to extreme right-wing Republicans, who are influencing some very undemocratic legislation and practices.

Last week, three Tennessee legislators – one white and two black – joined students in the legislature in what was a peaceful protest against permissive gun laws that have taken tens of thousands of lives over the past few years. The Republican dominated legislature then voted to expel the two black legislators but not the white member.

Republican legislators appear to be openly demonstrating racism in the halls of democracy. 

Second, Republicans have been able to appropriate significant power at the state and municipal levels, including school boards and Departments of Education. Schools are where minds are shaped, and values instilled. There is an old saying that who rocks the cradle rules the world.

According to Chalkbeat Tennessee (an education journal), a recently passed law is the latest effort by Tennessee conservatives to tamp down on classroom discussions that veer into ideas like systemic racism, sexism, and gender identity. 

In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis has forbidden any mention of LGBTQ realities or the history of systemic racism against African Americans and indigenous peoples in the schools at any grade.  

To ban discussing history or reality should be abhorrent in a 21st century democracy. Students at all levels can research any subject online however, without proper guidance and discussion, they might not use critical judgment in analyzing complex subjects. 

This, together with the banning of books from school libraries, deprives students at all levels from a degree of access to facts and ideas that concern them directly.

Third, the far right has increased its influence on the judiciary, from the Supreme Court on down.

In a potentially devastating blow for abortion access nationwide, a federal judge in Amarillo last week suspended the sale of mifepristone, an FDA approved abortion-inducing drug that has been on the market for more than 20 years.

“This is the first time a judge has unilaterally, against the FDA’s objections, removed a drug from the market,” said Greer Donley, a University of Pittsburgh law professor who studies FDA law. “A judge who has ... no scientific expertise, overruling the agency that has a ton of scientific expertise.”

That same day, another judge in Washington state overruled that decision for non-Republican run states.

The majority conservative Supreme Court also recently struck down Roe vs Wade, jeopardizing a woman’s right to choose. Many red states have clamped down and now might place a woman’s life in danger and even threaten to arrest and jail anyone who helps a woman get abortion information or helps her get to a clinic in another state that permits the procedure.

This underscores a new tendency of apparently normalizing division and placing politics above science, dialogue and national unity.

This is what is happening in Republican states in the post-Trump U.S. 

Can the tide be turned?

Twenty-six states are governed by Republicans, and twenty-four by Democrats. An almost even split in an almost evenly divided country.

Can the U.S. survive as a vibrant and viable democracy, never mind as a united country?

There is one way that it could.

Generation Z voters (young voters voting for the first time) stand against many of the policies that Republicans are espousing. Many voted for the first time in the mid-term elections in 2022, sparing the Democrats from a rout. 

If Democrats in Republican states can galvanize the young to vote in greater numbers, then they may have a chance to reverse these tendencies.

This will require targeted strategies, excellent communications, leaders who connect, and viable and attractive policies and arguments.

Absent these, I don’t believe that the prognosis is good.

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Keep reading: Politique de Grandeur?

Edition: Estefanía Cardeña