Response to The Indirect Trap

(See: Just Above Sunset: The Indirect Trap)

Alan,

Instead of completely agreeing with you (and Waldman), I think I’ll stick with my comment of yesterday — those voters who care more about appearances and less about actual truth will continue to claim that Pence won, while those who think truth matters can argue that Kaine won. Both sides make their point, and never the twain shall meet, at least this late in the campaign.

What happens in the next few years if Trump loses?

It could go either way — either Republicans will, at least for a while, try to do what the Germans did with Hitler after WWII, which is try to never mention him and see if he’ll be erased from public memory, or eventually say, “Yes, he was awful, but we had no knowledge of what he was doing”; or what Republicans tried to do with GWB after he was gone, which is try to never mention him and see if he’ll be erased from public memory, or eventually admit what they were forced to admit, which is that the Iraq War actually was a big mistake, but then pretend it was made infinitely worse by the inactions of (fill in name of Democratic villain/s, to be named later).

In other words, eventually the truth of history will be irrefutable, and all they’ll really be able to do is somehow mitigate its damage, in hopes of making it easier for those future “voters who care more about appearances and less about actual truth” to defend their team.

Let’s face it, there will always be those who believe that we should do what we feel like doing, rather than what we really should be doing, and that, since the ends always justify the means for these people, the truth can always be safely denied the opportunity to interfere with conservative policymaking.

But Wait! There’s more!

There’s always the chance future Republicans won’t have to struggle with any of this! Now let’s try to imagine what Republicans will do if Trump wins!