Donald Trump and the Trumpism That Will Survive Him

He's been slowly losing it since he lost the debate, and a tape revealed him to be  vulgar, foul-mouthed misogynist who boasts about using his tiny fingers to sexually assault women.

He's been staying up too late tweeting crazy things, the strain of the long campaign is getting to him.

And now Donald Trump has finally gone over the deep end.

And declared war on his own party.



Or broken his shackles. 

Donald Trump is launching a kamikaze mission -- fracturing his own party four weeks before Election Day. The GOP nominee is lashing out in a stream of tweets boiling with rage and resentment, slamming House Speaker Paul Ryan for effectively cutting him loose and accusing the party leadership of dooming his campaign. It's a meltdown unprecedented by a presidential nominee this late in the year.

And is now even threatening the Republican's hold on Congress.



Donald J. Trump’s intensifying battle with his own party is tearing open the nation’s political map, pulling Republicans across the country into a self-destructive feud that could imperil dozens of lawmakers in Congress and potentially throw conservative-leaning states into Hillary Clinton’s column.

Which is of course very good news for Hillary Clinton and the Democrats. 

But what is now also blindingly obvious, is that this nightmare won't end when that dangerous demagogue is finally defeated.

For even though Trump now claims that he didn't stalk Clinton during the debate like a character out of some horror movie....



She invaded HIS space, he says.

And even though after ending the debate by praising Clinton's strength and perseverance, he's now running this new attack ad claiming she doesn't have the "stamina" to be President.



Which can only make any decent person wonder how low he might go.

What is disturbing is how many Americans still believe in him...

Thank you Florida- a MOVEMENT that has never been seen before and will never be seen again. Lets get out & #VoteTrumpPence16 on 11/8! #MAGA pic.twitter.com/e90a2AL7vO

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 12, 2016

For he is still  attracting big crowds, and for a lot of his supporters he is still the man sent to save them. Their very own Messiah.

So I can only imagine how disappointed they are going to be when he is finally crushed. 

Even if as Roger Cohen writes, Trumpism will survive him.

If the United States escapes a disaster Nov. 8, it will have done so narrowly. Donald Trump, a dictator-in-waiting with a brat’s temper and a prig’s scowl, has won the support of tens of millions of Americans. It’s fortunate that we are less than a month from the election because we are running out of words to describe him: this phony, this liar, this blowhard, this cheat, this bully, this misogynist, this demagogue, this predator, this bigot, this bore, this egomaniac, this racist, this sexist, this sociopath. I will not go on. It’s pointless. Everyone knows, not least his supporters.

For Trumpism is just a symptom of a failing economic system and it will not disappear until that system is overhauled. 

There is something rotten in the state of the West. It is not one single thing; it is a feeling of downward drift in societies unjustly skewed.

People know this. They feel the tectonic plates shifting, not only of America’s place in the world after two wars without victory, but also of production, employment, their livelihoods. Precariousness is the new normal. Everything is visible, including the immense wealth of the rich. Tossed here and there by dimly understood global forces people revert to nativism, nationalism and ethnocentrism — in a word, to Trumpism.

And until we finally understand what our worship of technology is doing to us, and where it could lead us...



The creative economy is a catchy phrase but in many cases, for those without the education or connections to benefit, what is created is misery. Technology is wonderful when it’s useful but less so when it puts an end to your usefulness. Its whirlwind has left humanity with their heads bowed gazing at desolate little screens.

The stooped yearn then to look up and perceive a man who promises deliverance. Trump has been that man.

The good news is that the same conditions that have created Trumpism can be harnessed by progressives, like Bernie Sanders has done...



For only his kind of revolution can offer real change, and the hope of a better future.

And that revolution is continuing.

But in the meantime with less than four weeks to go, we are left with a Trump unshackled.

Millions of his increasingly angry and bitter supporters.

And one can only wonder how low that monstrous demagogue will take this nightmare campaign before he is finally done...