By Andrew Boyd

Efforts at predicting the future, particular in things as non-mechanistic as politics, is a fool’s errand, but here we go!

First, we must ask ourselves what is Trumpism?  Your guess is probably as good as mine.  Well, no, I necessarily believe my guess is better, and my guess is that Trump gives voice to a deeply seated distrust of our political institutions on the part of something approaching half or more of the voting public, and the belief of same that the whole game, top to bottom, is rigged.

These same people witnessed the hollowing out of our manufacturing economy in service to free and fair trade that was neither.  They watched as same elites, under the pretext of environmental conservation, sought to enable both the destruction and transfer of wealth on a global scale.  Same game, different rationale.  And most critically, they saw in their own party leaders a cowardice and cynicism that left them feeling altogether betrayed. 

Onto that fertile ground stepped an extraordinarily charismatic man. I won’t pretend to know his motives. Such things are very hard to discern.  Given Trump’s history, one might be forgiven for thinking he is, first and foremost, an opportunist and a narcissist in the same league with most of the men who’ve held our nation’s highest office.  Politics on a national scale is the domain of such people, which is among the main reasons I appreciate the checks on power provided by our constitutional system.

The momentum of Trumpism is Trump himself, and I suspect he will find ways to take the movement with him, and the harder the left pushes back by censorship or other bullish, un-American means, the stronger he will become, like Obi Wan Kenobi. That is not a comparison of character, but of the dynamics of ideological movements, and it carries a warning to those who would seek to make Trump a martyr for the cause.  Bad move.  Really, really bad move. 

I despise the cult of personality that surrounds Trump, as I do all charismatic movements, theological, political or social.  Bad things grow in that ground, such as all reasonable people witnessed with horror in the halls of the Capitol last week.  

I hope, naively, that whomever next reaches for the brass ring is more principled in character and measured in tone, for all our sakes. But the gravitational pull of Trump is not soon to be diminished, I’m afraid, and I don’t see anyone on the national political stage today with the power to achieve escape velocity.

For now, the movement, if not the party, is the fiefdom of Donald. God help us all. 

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