NO MAN'S LAND

Six years ago, before Donald J. Trump had come down the escalator to announce his candidacy for the American Presidency, I published my book ‘Neither Here nor There, A First-Generation Immigrant in Search of American Exceptionalism’. In the book, I was making an attempt to sort out for myself if my decision, made in 1983, to make America my permanent home, was warranted by everything that had transpired since that time. I chose the title ‘Neither Here nor There’ to indicate that I found myself in somewhat of a no-man’s land, not sure where I belonged, in the Netherlands where I was born, or in America, the country I had picked for the future. My conclusion was that the die had been cast, that with children and grandchildren growing up in America, I had irretrievably relocated my family, but I was still uneasy about the wisdom behind my decision. The core of my hesitation was that the forces pulling America apart were seemingly overwhelming the forces that bind America together.

Now, six years hence, it is time to update the picture. And it is immediately clear that the centrifugal forces that were pulling the fabric of the American society apart have only persisted and intensified. And the man at the top has been the catalyst for this development. There is no doubt that, over the last six years, no one has shaped the state of the nation more than Donald J. Trump. The 45^th President has, from the start of his presidential campaign and with great precision, tuned into the base instincts that, in America, have always lived right under the surface: xenophobia, white supremacy, racism, misogyny, hubris, greed, and resentment. So successful has he been at it, that he has been able to turn his political presence into a veritable cult. From the start it was clear that he had no traditional republican credentials, but he did not need them. It defies credulity, but with his cult following he was able to take over the Grand Old Party, eradicate the republican platform, and submit the republican cadre to subservience with the proverbial carrot (tax cuts and judicial appointments) and stick (purity tests, tweet attacks, and primary challenges).

That dominance has held until the election this year. It is too early to tell how the electoral defeat will affect the cult following, or if it will cause the MAGA cult to lose control of the Republican Party. But, given the 74 million votes collected by Trump, it is clear that the cult will not go away. The only question is if it will lose or gain steam as a result of the election defeat and if it will disassociate itself from the GOP.

The cult demands loyalty and purity and it is telling that Fox News is no longer considered loyal and pure enough to be serving as its mouthpiece, but getting pushed aside in favor of Newsmax and One America News Network. And, on these channels, there is increasing chatter about the desire to walk away from the GOP and create a populist ‘Patriot Party’ as a home for the purists in the MAGA movement.

That will not happen, unless Trump, after having relinquished the power of the White House, wants it to happen. It would be a remarkable turn of events. The ‘Never-Trumpers’ have, until now, struggled in vain to regain, if not control, some measure of influence within the GOP, but now they may be given their party back if, indeed, a mass exit of the MAGA cultists takes place. It would bring about the separation of the kernels from the chaff I wrote about in one of my previous columns https://castnetcorp.blogspot.com/ .

It would be ironic if democracy and effective federal governance would be restored by an act of separation or sedition by the MAGA cult that has fought toe and nail to keep control of the center of power in America. Creation of a populist third party would open the way to a political realignment that would place political power in Congress in the center, where moderate Democrats and Republicans can be expected to represent a workable majority.

This scenario, if it plays out as imagined, would offer the best, and maybe the only, chance for the Biden administration to begin to address the many challenges confronting a nation brought to its knees by the COVID-19 pandemic, the resulting economic crisis, and years of political stalemate. It would allow for the extreme elements on the right and the left to be put on the fringes and away from the center of power. This assumes, of course, that Republicans, voters and politicians alike, faced with a choice between the MAGA cult and true republicanism would, in majority, come back to the Grand Old Party. The creation of the ‘Patriot Party’ would force Republican members of Congress to decide to stay with the GOP, to switch allegiance to the new populist party, or to stay in Congress as Independent. It would finally bring clarity to the depth and scope of the MAGA cult and offer a prediction of its staying power. Would the movement go the way of the Know-Nothing Party, the Bull-Moose Party, or, more recently, Ross Perot’s Reform Party and fade away or establish itself for the foreseeable future as the dominant representation of the American right?

Without a split of the Republican Party, the prospects for an effective public governance under the Biden administration are bleak. Mitch McConnell was not successful in his effort and intent to keep the Obama administration to one term (even though he successfully blocked any significant legislative initiative after the 2010 midterm elections), but he is likely to redouble his effort with the Biden administration coming in. And, even in the unlikely event that the Senate will be evenly split at 50/50 for the next two years, the filibuster rule will give him enough legislative power to block any major Biden legislative initiative with respect to voting rights, taxation, immigration, or climate control. Biden would be forced to fall back to governing, as much as he can get away with, by executive order, which is the opposite of what he would want to do and counterproductive to any effort to restore democracy by restoring the proper balance between the powers of the legislative and executive branches of government. 

When I finished my book in 2014, the MAGA cult had yet to surface and, even without it, I felt like being in no-man’s land. The intervening six years have made it clear that America has a large minority of populist, anti-democratic, and semi-fascist fanatics. We can’t be quite sure how large a minority. Let’s pray that it is only a fraction of the 74 million votes received by its leader. They would do the nation a great, be it unintended, favor if they separated themselves by creating their own ‘Patriot Party’ so that we can see who is kernel and who is chaff.

If they don’t and, in the next few years, grow into an even more controlling force than they have been under the Trump regime, I will no longer find myself in no-man’s land. I will find that I have been dropped behind the lines into enemy territory. A place where I never intended or wanted to be.