What of the Future?
This article was originally intended to be a continuation of my “Autopsy” series on last year’s Presidential election, in which I would outline ways for the Democratic Party to win the midterm elections in 2026. Painfully I must conclude that the Republican’s brazen and unmitigated destruction of the U.S. Constitution (see “The Day of Coronation”, which is eerily prophetic) has led me to conclude that the 2024 Presidential election was the last truly free one under the U.S. Constitutional form of government.
It is highly likely at this stage that, if the Republicans do lose at the ballot box next year, President Trump will again claim that the results were “rigged” in the closest races necessary to tip the balance of scale back in favor of the Republicans. He may then instruct his increasingly docile “Department of War” to seize the voting apparatus and/or ballots in these races to, allegedly, perform an “independent audit.”
If this occurs, he has several choices. He may indefinitely postpone the “findings” of such “audit”, thus providing political cover for also postponing the swearing-in of any newly elected Democrats (similar to what is happening now with Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva [D-AZ]). Alternatively, he may also declare that the “audit findings” showed wide-scale fraud and insist that the Department of War conduct a re-election, in order to be “fair and impartial.” Either way, he may also use any ensuing chaos from this to justify fully implementing the Insurrection Act, stretching such law to the point of indefinitely suspending the U.S. Constitution, making himself de facto dictator.
Despite these existential and imminent threats, the only serious opposition, the Democratic Party, is in an identity crisis. It is probably too late for them to re-brand themselves and offer a serious alternative to MAGA, particularly on the philosophical level.
It is telling that the only faction of the Democrats which is enjoying some success is the unequivocal socialist wing, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). This is not a comfort to anyone who believes in individual rights protected by the U.S. Constitution, as socialism is a much older brand of collectivism and today’s socialists have shown no compunctions for dismantling the Constitution.
Unfortunately, this was to be expected. As I have noted before, recent surveys have shown that voters are receptive to the idea of a dictatorship (see “2024 Presidential Race Autopsy (Part I)”) and any form of collectivism gives them this. They disagree as to which type of dictatorship they want, but they still want nevertheless.
There is some glimmer of hope that the madness which is MAGA comes to an end shortly. The “No Kings” protests are popular and “the resistance” is pushing back with the only tools left available to them (a minority of State governments and a majority of lower and appellate courts), though there are other tools which are being neglected (e.g., nationwide strikes). There is also the possibility that President Trump dies from natural causes and MAGA will fracture, as there is no one with his magnetism that could attract all the different metallic pieces of this Frankenstein monster. “Trump fatigue” is real, but the opposition’s spirit is not yet broken.
However, it may be too little, too late, as the fact of the matter is that the American people are morally bankrupt. Consider, for example, the so-called “Epstein Files.” Few issues should garner more unanimous support than criminalizing sexual assault and rape against minors and applying the law to the perpetrators regardless of their political or business affiliation.
Yet, after Attorney General Pam Bondi likely informed President Trump that his name appeared hundreds of times in the “Files” back in May of this year, both the Trump Administration and its acolytes in Congress have been desperately trying to suppress the disclosure of these “Files”. Outside of a few notable Congressional defections, Republicans are more willing to protect pedophiles than they are to (at the very least) embarrass their Beloved Leader (and this is leaving aside the fact that the Biden Administration also had these “Files” and did nothing with them).
Will their release actually make a difference? Doubtful. Despite knowing that President Trump was a convicted felon, insurrectionist, and found by a jury of his peers to have engaged in sexual assault, nearly half of the voting population supported him in last year’s presidential election. Why? Because most have embraced a toxic mix of mysticism and subjectivism, where two diametrically opposed facts or ideas can co-exist in reality, as long as they conform to the feelings of the observer.
The “Epstein Files” are a perfect example of this. Since May, the MAGA propaganda machine has been in overdrive claiming that the “Epstein List” both does not exist and is a fabrication by former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama, despite the obvious contradictions in such assertions. Those on the fringes of the MAGA extreme are happy to claim that the “List” exists and is loaded with the names of prominent Democrats, such as former President Bill Clinton, but also claim in the same breath that the “List” is a “hoax” when it comes to listing any prominent conservatives or Republicans.
In other words, something can exist and not exist at the same time; faith trumps logic; A does not always equal A.
Jesus once said that those who “shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” (Matt. 18:6). But is there any real expectation that if there is incriminating evidence against Trump in these files, that his Christian supporters will be purchasing a mill stone soon? Even if there is video evidence of Trump raping an underaged girl, MAGA will simply return to its well of petty excuses which are always given to justify his actions (“It’s a fake video” or “[Prominent Democrat] also did it” or “So what? We’re not electing a saint”), regardless of what the law and Christianity dictate.
Republicans are stonewalling the release of the evidence because they are cowards; and they are cowards because they are morally bankrupt. While it is true that one of the motivations for not turning against the Dear Leader is because they fear his retribution, this is not the only one. Just this week, an embarrassingly overwhelming mountain of evidence of a love for mass exterminations, fascism and Nazism, sexism and racism was released to the public, in the form of text messages among young Republican leaders.
These leaders are a threat to no one’s careers except their own and, fortunately, condemnation has been nearly universal (albeit tepidly from the Republicans), with one very notable example: Vice President J.D. Vance, who simply dismisses this as “boys will be boys” (even most of the leaders were over the age of 25).
The Vice President is, in fact, defending these vile thoughts by not condemning them. A generation ago, this would have been as easy as cooking toast; now, such thoughts are the growing trend among the new generation. Vance knows this and is giving cover to it, for his own future political gain. He has correctly pointed out that the Democrats have also let this kind of behavior skate, but he does so not to morally condemn, but to use it as a “whataboutism” to excuse the even more morally depraved beliefs of his allies.
The United States is going through the same intellectual and cultural stage as Germany during the 1930s, as observed over forty years ago by Dr. Leonard Peikoff in his book The Ominous Parallels. MAGA is cashing-in on the systematic failure of the public education system which, for generations, have been producing irrational, whim-worshipping graduates, who hold that facts can be whatever their unassailable feelings dictate they should be (and on the right, most ascribe these feelings as being revelations from God).
How will this all end?
Reality is the ultimate arbitrator of both men and civilizations. A country cannot evade it in the long term and, when its populous abandons reason completely, it is only a matter of time before it disintegrates. The only remaining question is whether the United States meets the same fate as that of ancient Rome (primarily self-implosion) or that of Nazi Germany (a world war). Since the European Union is the only bastion of reason and democracy left in the world, I venture its end will be more like the former, especially since the E.U. is facing the same problematic trends as the United States (only about twenty years delayed). This raises the ominous specter that another type of Dark Ages may be on the horizon.
MAGA is here to stay, until its inherent nihilism destroys so much that even its most zealous advocates can no longer ignore the brutal and ugly reality of its effects. While “the resistance” should continue doing what it is doing and up-the-ante as far as possible with peaceful protests (nationwide strikes, more vigorously asserting the 10th Amendment, etc.), the only way to defeat what MAGA, communism, socialism, and nationalism are offering to the world in the long-run is to embrace the antitheses of such: objective reason and objective morality. And it must be done before burnings at the stake come back into vogue.
