Good morning.
Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 35. Sunrise is 7:06 AM and sunset 4:21 PM for 9h 15m 05s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with with 61.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
There will be a City of Whitewater election machine audit at 1:30 PM, and the Fire Departments’s board meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1941, Emperor Hirohito of Japan gives his tacit approval to the decision of the imperial council to initiate war against the United States
This libertarian blogger wrote on 12.1.20, and still contend, that Trump is a spent political force, but that Trumpism will go on. See Man and Movement. After disappointing midterm elections for the GOP, Trump’s tepid campaign announcement, federal and state investigations into his many transgressions, and his evident anti-Semitism, more reason than ever to doubt Trump’s future.
Adam Serwer observes sensibly, however, that for the GOP Rebelling Against Trump Is Not the Same as Rebelling Against Trumpism (‘Even if Trump himself departs the scene, conservative demand for his approach to politics will remain’):
Whoever comes after Trump will likely share his most politically dangerous ideological convictions: contempt for democracy, a belief that the rival party’s constituencies are inherently illegitimate, and a disdain for the rights of those the GOP coalition considers beneath it.
Right-wing elites concerned about Trump’s political effectiveness will not likely share the same worries about his heir. Without structural changes to that system, sustained political defeat, or shifts in the nature of the Republican coalition, Trump may go, but the conservative demand for Trumpism will remain. And as long as that is the case, the rise of another Trump by a different name is an inevitability.
Locally, this truth is evident in how conservatism come to be dominated by conservative populism (the MAGA men). See The Kinds of Conservatives in Whitewater.
The rightwing populists are the most energetic and vocal of the conservatives in Whitewater. The traditional conservatives are finished, and the transactional ones (that is, the few dealmaking types of bankers, landlords, and public relations men) have fewer people each year that they can cajole, dupe, sucker, manipulate, or badger into doing their bidding.
These conservative populists, however, have claims to make, scores to settle, and meltdowns to exhibit. They’ve no response to their own reverses except intensification. If, in their thinking, half a dose hasn’t worked, then surely a full dose will…
Some of their candidates may show up in the spring. While they shouldn’t expect to speak without replies, claim without fact-checking, or contend without pertinent refutation, it’s likely that they will have those unrealistic expectations. The obligation to reason well requires more from them than a bleating what, huh, me?
Trump’s decline won’t determine the future of Trumpism. That’s a question yet to be decided, in America, Wisconsin, and Whitewater.