Politics is often likened to sports, and the similarity holds for many simple and obvious reasons. People feel connected to sports teams. Sometimes this happens because of an affinity or passion for a particular player. How do you count how many Taylor Swift fans became Kansas City Chiefs fans in the past year? Often they have a history with the school or city the team represents.
My old boss, Art Parker, was a big New York Yankees fan. He inherited that fan-like quality from his father, but had a complicated and sometimes difficult relationship with him. Art’s father died when he was relatively young, so he didn’t have the years to develop a strong resentment towards his father and start rooting for the Red Sox, as happens with many Yankees fans with daddy issues. Similarly, people identify with a particular political party. This often happens because people support the party their parents supported, or because the insidious nature of American politics, which divides the electorate, causes people to disagree with their parents and loyally and unquestioningly support the opposing party. It’s rare to be considered a “fan” of a team you despise.
My family wasn’t particularly political. My maternal grandfather was an open Democrat, but I never heard anyone talk about politics apart from that. My father, the only person in my family I ever talked to about politics, was a Republican, but not what I’d call a conservative. My personal politics are similar to sports, although I’m not a sports fan, and my interest is more in destructive spectacles, like demolition derbys, than in organized athletic endeavors.
That is why I was overjoyed when Donald Trump was elected president. When I tell people I like Donald Trump as a president, I am sure they don’t understand why. Most of the things about Trump that his most ardent evangelical supporters tend to ignore or look away from are things I like about the Trumpster. He is loud, obscene, sexually perverted, and unashamed of the numerous lies he openly tells on the microphone. These are the things I like about Trump. I like these things because hypocritical conservatives who for most of my life have extolled the virtues of “family values” as reflected in the president are now supporting a Trumpian who is undoubtedly a cheater, a gambler, a swearer, a bastard, and who espouses his own version of the Bible with grotesque arrogance. I thought that if Trump was elected, that would be the last we would hear about “family values” in presidential politics. What I did not like, and still do not like, about Trump is that he is trying to become closer to the radical Christian nationalists who are part of the Christian conservative movement that claims to speak for all Christians. No one speaks for all Christians, and that’s the beauty of this system.
Most people support candidates they agree with or who reflect the majority consensus in their area. There are few politically favored places in the United States where seats or presidential delegates are up for grabs in the November ballot. Even in states considered swing states like Colorado and Ohio, there are reliably Republican and reliably Democratic counties. Like a growing number of people across the country, I feel that neither party truly represents me or my interests. As a result, I have made it my goal to do everything I can to help Republicans and Democrats change parties and possibly destroy them with serious upheaval. This will happen whether I help it or not. About every 50 years, political parties experience major upheaval, confusing interests and supporters. George Friedman wrote an excellent book on the subject, “The New York Times.” The storm before the calm.
If I were to bet $1,000 on the 2024 presidential election, I would say Trump’s chances of winning in November are slim. Trump and Joe Biden can usually count on 40-45% of voters just to be the party’s nominees. When Trump faced Hillary Clinton, he received just 46% of the vote despite being one of the least popular and most hated candidates in modern history. The Republican Party has been divided ever since.
Republicans have factions, just like Democrats. While Democratic factions tend to fight each other, Republican factions barely fought each other before Trump came along. But Trump alienated many veterans in the party, and in some cases entire factions. When Nikki Haley challenged, she had no chance of winning. But she won 13% to 18% of Republican voters in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, who are likely not going to vote in the November election despite their recent support for Trump. Moreover, a cynical Republican fundraiser might think that with an old Joe Biden in the White House and a pile of boring clothes like Kamala Harris waiting to take over the job in the vice president’s office, there is a great chance of raising future campaign funds. Personally, I have to admit that there is a certain morbid curiosity in watching a president grow old and die in office, only to be replaced by an incompetent vice president who is even less suited to the constraints of the job than Trump.
In my opinion, Trump was a “one-and-done” president not because he was hampered by a political witch hunt, as some would argue he was. Rather, like Red Sox’s Manny Ramirez, his erratic, aggressive and destructive personality (which is hilarious to watch) ended his career early. Regardless of how the November election goes, I can’t imagine there’s anything more comforting in the winter than staying warm next to a pile of political trash.
