With the 2024 Presidential Election approaching, the USA must brace itself for the dangers of a second Trump presidency.

In this first part of his analysis, George Grundy examines the political turmoil that erupted during Trump's first term in office.

America at the Crossroads

It didn’t begin with trains, concentration camps and ovens. The descent into the fascist abyss was marked by a thousand nicks and cuts to the social fabric, by themselves often barely remarked upon. Slowly and surely, a collective indifference to the daily indignities inflicted upon those deemed the “other” became something more malevolent. Marginalised groups were singled out as threats to a fantasised, bygone way of life and distrust turned to hate.

After all, the country faced a moment of existential crisis, he told them. Not making dramatic changes during such a time of emergency would be a betrayal of his duty, he insisted. Such was the danger, his party assured the public, that only centralising power in the hands of one man would allow him to take the sort of swift, decisive action that might save the nation. During such febrile times, drastic revisions to the law and the concentrating of political control seemed reasonable, patriotic even.

The poor and weak saw his propagandistic displays of strength and gave him their fealty, but the real villains were elites, the rich and powerful. Educated people, who saw in this curious man a vessel through which they might accumulate even more of the money, power or influence they so craved and chose to look the other way when extremism flourished.

He might seem crazy, they assured those that still bravely raised alarm, but there was a limit to how far he would go. When the political storm had passed, he would stop. Moderate. Surely. As the tempest gathered, it was they that might have stopped him.

It started with small steps. The fall wasn’t inevitable.

6 January 2021

There was just a moment, a brief window when today’s fascistic iteration seemed to have run its course. When violent revolution burst through the doors of America’s Congress on 6 January, three years ago, the cowering lickspittle Republicans who had carried so much water for their dear leader were, just for a glancing instant, brought to the surface gasping for air.

“Count me out, enough is enough,” promised South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham. Trump “bears responsibility” for the violence said former speaker of the United States House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy. The American Republic’s near-death experience had sobered these political drunkards like a shot of adrenaline yet, when ardour cooled, the Grand Old Party’s moment of clarity lasted mere hours.

That same night, 147 Republican lawmakers returned to the chamber, through the broken windows and doors, past the defecation, and nevertheless voted to overturn Joe Biden’s election in favour of Donald Trump.

Of that 147, 126 of them are still in office. One is now Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Trump had invited his followers to Washington on 6 January, promising that it would ‘be wild’. He implored the crowd to march to the Capitol and ‘fight like hell’, warning that if they didn’t they ‘wouldn’t have a country’ any more. He promised that he would be there with them, but instead retreated to the White House and refused to take action to calm the mob when protest turned to violent rampage.

As rioters poured into the Capitol, Trump tweeted that Mike Pence had lacked ‘the courage’ to do his bidding (stopping the certification of Biden as President). His followers saw the tweet and redoubled their efforts to find the Vice President. A gallows was erected.

After a number of hours and countless entreaties from those closest to him, Trump did finally tweet that his followers should act lawfully, but we now know that even that feeble message was written by an advisor, rather than the President.

Miraculously, the republic survived. Someone left pipe bombs outside the Republican National Committee (RNC) and Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters the night before the riot. The bombs failed to explode and the suspect is presumed still at large. An armed mob chanting “hang Mike Pence” had got within seconds of encountering the Vice President, but somehow no members of Congress were harmed and the House re-assembled to do its democratic duty.

Yet, the Republican moment of intransigence vanished almost in an instant. Within weeks, McCarthy was swallowing what remained of his pride and down at Mar-a-Lago, kissing the ring.

It was then that we should have known for sure. There was no bottom for Trump, no depth to which this man could sink that would finally cause Republicans to screw their courage to the sticking place. No one could still claim to have missed the warning signs. The party of Lincoln was now an authoritarian personality cult for whom even violent revolution wasn’t enough to change course. Three years ago, we knew.

A union divided

The seeds of the political crisis now engulfing the United States are sown across more than half a century. In the fork in the road that was the election of Ronald Reagan, in his purging of the party after winning a second term of office. They’re there in petulant adolescence as Bush v Gore is decided 5-4 by a Supreme Court in which all concurring judges had been appointed by presidents from the victorious party.

The Republican Party’s mendacious manipulation of power can be seen at its most vivid in the emotional days after 9/11, when George W Bush’s spokesman ominously warned that from now on Americans should “watch what they say, watch what they do”. The Bush Administration’s warped vision of the world was laid bare as America responded to the terrorist attacks with ruinous wars, colour-coded domestic threat levels and a “war on terror” in which all citizens were now suspect.

So perhaps, in retrospect, we shouldn’t have been surprised when Donald Trump, the six-time bankrupt know-nothing blowhard, steamrolled his way to the White House in 2016. Trump’s campaign promises of mass deportations, a trans-continental border wall, bans on religious groups and punishment for women exercising control over their bodies all seem like the natural conclusion of America’s rightward drift through the age of Reagan and the Bushes.

Trump has become both political symptom and disease, sparking a level of extremism that transcends his rhetoric, and the direction of the modern Republican Party suggests that it’s uncertain how much longer fascist elements within American society can be kept at bay.

Despite the appearance of relative calm while Joe Biden governs, successfully, as a traditional centre-Left President, America is more divided than at any point since the Civil War. Just one in five marriages cross the party divide (of Republican v Democrat), a number that is still shrinking. Political sectarianism today resembles tribal divides from generations past, as Americans’ party affiliation often reflects an internalised sense of identity.

Increasingly, being a Democrat or a Republican represents a statement of who you are, rather than a set of values. Four in five Americans think that the country’s very foundations are under threat from those on the other side of the aisle. Just one group is correct in that belief and has the evidence to prove it.

Today’s Republican Party has become a personality cult, overtly anti-democratic and openly working to weaken civic institutions, corrupt previously august bodies, disenfranchise voters and seek and retain political power at all costs. Trump’s MAGA Republicans sneer at democracy and the rule of law. Should they gain control again, a very different America will emerge.

This article to be continued next Friday, 5 June.