What Should Come After Trump?
There have been a spate of pieces lately about what comes after Trump -- as though President Trump were already half-way gone.
Really? You think the Mueller whisperers are going to get him after all?
But I would say that the question is: what kind of leader should we choose to lead us normals after the End of Trump?
First of all, we don't want someone kinder, gentler. Those nice, educated women who are offended by Trump's insults are forgetting one thing. Trump's playground insults are penny-ante compared to the totalitarian insults of the average Democratic politician or activist who routinely accuses ordinary Americans of the thought-crime of racism-sexism-homophobia, not to mention toxic masculinity or white supremacy.
Earth to liberals: the only supremacy problem around here is the cruel injustice of leftist supremacy.
No, the After-Trump president has to say: I can't believe that a person that has called people racists on no less than 231 occasions has any right to complain about insults.
Of course, this kind of remark should only be used when talking to an audience of women; it connects with the women's Culture of Complaint.
With men the After-Trump should say: I've said it before, so I'll say it again. Nobody who has ever called another American a racist has any right to speak in the public square. Period. We cannot begin to solve our vital national problems until the Democratic Party's activists are prepared to recognize other people's right to hold a different opinion, and even express it on Twitter or in the sacred precincts of a university without fear of naming and shaming. Until then we should exile them to cultural Outer Slobbovia.
You can see that, when addressing men, the After-Trump can use a certain directness and manliness that is inappropriate for a female audience.
See what I am doing? I am getting the After-Trump to advance from Trump's tactical insults to insults with a strategic purpose. Because it is not enough to stop the advance of the liberal hordes. We need to defeat their cruel and unjust hegemony and then dispatch the cultural cavalry to rout them and disperse them.
The other thing I would like is for a president to be a cultural leader and lead the people to believe in the Promised Land of the market economy culture. For 150 years the educated elite has been teaching us all to hate the market economy -- while the market economy increased real per capita income by 3,000 percent. At some point it needs to admit it was wrong, dead wrong, more wrong than any ruling class has ever been wrong about anything in history. Trump has danced on the edge of this by talking tough nationalism while actually encouraging the market with tax rate cuts and deregulation straight out of the conservative think tanks. But at some point a president has to lead the priests of the ruling class out of a reactionary culture that believes in the saving grace of political power -- for people like them, of course, not for you and me -- and teach it to preach the new culture that believes in performing a service before demanding to be paid, and to accept that the world cannot guarantee anyone lifetime security, except by forcing other people to pay up using government force.
Of course, I realize that this is all pie in the sky. It is not the job of a president to change the culture, because politics is downstream from culture, and culture is downstream from religion.
Yes -- it is the religion of the educated ruling class that oppresses us, with its transcendental faith in the idea of politics and activism as a sacred calling -- for the educated elite and its approved little darlings -- and with us normals as the Evil Ones to be vanquished in a progressive jihad of activism. But obviously we normals cannot ban other people's religion, nor should we want to.
Of course, we can rebel against the ruling-class injustice that issues from its ruling-class religion, and we should, and we will. And we can rally behind a president who will fight for us against the vile ruling class, and we will.
But we still need a new religion to inspire a new generation to create a new culture to develop a new politics to rule an America where normal people can wive and thrive in peace and prosperity rather than live in increasing subjection to progressive totalitarians. And that is the one thing that the After-Trump cannot deliver, not on his own.
What should come after Trump is a new religious movement revolted by the hypocrites and pretenders that rule us, and determined to find a new meaning of life, the universe, and everything that goes much lighter on politics and government power.
Come on, you young'uns. Stop sucking up to the poisonous teachers, administrators, and mostly peaceful protesters that exploit and oppress you!
Christopher Chantrill @chrischantrill runs the go-to site on US government finances, usgovernmentspending.com. Also get his American Manifesto and his Road to the Middle Class.