34 for 45! On Trump’s Historic Humiliation and the Limits of Our Schadenfreude

"The truth is, as shamelessly guilty and disgraceful as Trump is, he could still win."

Photo by Jose M on Unsplash

Last week we got a blast of heartening schadenfreude when Donald Trump was convicted of 34 felonies in a New York courtroom. Many of us on what stands in for the “left” in American politics were given a shred of hope that, perhaps, this might dim his re-election chances next November and the host of ills that would accompany another four years of right-wing rule. 

Maybe, just maybe, we might not be staring down the barrel of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 which would aim to dismantle the administrative state, destroy unions, undermine civil rights, take away women’s reproductive freedom, and further empower the billionaire class at the expense of the rest of us. 

And some of the immediate polling in the wake of the verdict had 49% of independents believing Trump should drop out of the race and other national polls showing a bit of movement away from him.  Of course, the perils of guessing at outcomes based on polling months away from an election are clear, but it is evidence of just how despairing many progressives have become that even the smallest movement in such measures is the result of jubilant analysis in some quarters.  Even though I’d love this to be a game changer moment, my I sense is that those analysts who see it as resulting in movement at the margins at best are correct. 

The truth is, as shamelessly guilty and disgraceful as Trump is, he could still win.  This never would have been true before the last few years, but it is now.  Nothing defines our moment more than the cold realization that many horrible things that would have seemed unimaginable in our recent history are now quite possible. 

As I wrote in my column last week, this election sits on toxic ground that has been seeded by years of loss, alienation, and the consistent erosion of social infrastructure.  As another recent poll of 18-30 year-olds reveals, the trauma of the last few years has been deep and many young people now believe that the United States is “a dying empire led by bad people”:

The data also found the COVID-19 pandemic has left a lasting, bad taste in the mouths of young voters: 51% of those polled said they were happier before the COVID-19 pandemic, 77% said that the event changed the country for the worse, and 45% said they feel less connected to friends and acquaintances compared with five years ago.

The painful irony here is that this despair has led to a deep distrust of institutions that has helped feed the American Right’s project of dismantling the state in the interests of the existing power elite. 

As Rick Perlstein noted in a recent American Prospect column on his own “political depression,” the fun never stops on the right:

What does my work on American conservatism come down to? One of my readers once put it best: "There’s always more, and it’s always worse. But it’s never new."

The most important part of that formulation is the "always worse" part. Right now, that means three things. First, there is no going back to some more innocent conservatism of the past. Second, if Donald Trump wins the majority of electoral votes and accedes again to the White House, this will obviously be very bad. But third, if he does not win the majority of electoral votes—well, it might be worse. I’ve heard that the secret to politics is repetition. Can you stand for me to repeat it one more time? The question is not just how many votes Donald Trump gets, but how many are willing to take up arms for him if he loses.

The political mechanism at work here comes down to this: “the basic thing conservatism promises to its adherents, a return of society to a prelapsarian state, is impossible; but that this impossible thing, in the logic of conservatism, is also imperative to achieve, lest civilization collapse, and good people suffer a kind of living death.”

Hence, for many Trump voters, his conviction of 34 felonies is only more evidence that “they” are out to get him and his supporters.  Democracy and its institutions have been captured by liberals and the “deep state,” and the only answer to this problem is a kind of political final solution.  As Perlstein describes the reaction of the right, “It must always move in an invariably more authoritarian direction, with no possible end point but an apocalyptic one.”

Although Perlstein’s piece was written before the Trump trial verdict, his observations about the ultimate endgame we are facing still ring true: “Just listen to any recent Donald Trump speech: The redemptive promises he makes are more insanely fantastical with each passing day. Imagine the disappointment their serial failures will bring in their wake, which can never redound on him. (Conservatism never fails …) They must instead be blamed on the Enemy . . . Which is us.”

But it is not the stubborn nihilism of the right that is the source of Perlstein’s political depression, rather it is his (and our) failure to maintain what he calls an “operational peace between ‘liberals’ and the ‘left’” in the face of the looming threat of fascism.  His own reaction comes as a result of a series of nasty conflicts he had with those who have accused him of being an apologist for “Genocide Joe” by arguing that the American right is actually worse than the Biden administration. 

Of course, most young voters whose moral outrage is directed at the Biden administration’s policy on the ongoing slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza are not fans of Trump. 

The problem for those trying to convince young voters to stay with the President because Trump would be even worse on the war because of his links to and affinity with the Israeli right-wing, is that he and the Democrats (particularly those intent on joining hands with the right and attacking protesters) are doing very little to help make that clear. Netanyahu is also doing everything he can to intensify the conflict, thus making all the realpolitik arguments about everything from climate to economic inequality to the rule of law and democracy ring hollow as long as hopes for a ceasefire and an accompanying just peace continue to be frustrated. 

In an election where the future of democracy in on the line, this ongoing, largely generational fracture in the Democratic coalition represents yet another troubling trend despite the momentary pleasures of schadenfreude.