Who Can Best Destroy America?

That’s the question that both Democrats and Republicans have been asking themselves. “Who is the least popular, least qualified, most obviously unacceptable candidate that we can get to run?”

Or so I assume, because that’s the only explanation I can think of for why 2024 is shaping up to see a face-off between the two worst Presidential candidates in the history of the country. It’s anyone’s guess who will win (see polls: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/). The goal for both parties, I assume, is to see how much they can fuck with Americans before they will vote for a third party.

If this works, next they’ll try running Jeffrey Dahmer versus a dirty sock in 2028.

1. Trump’s Appeal

Since 2016, many people pondered Trump’s appeal. It’s a genuine puzzle to most non-Trumpsters. We never really figured it out, and even Republican voters don’t necessarily know why they supported Trump. E.g., the explanation is not “Clinton was super-duper bad”, as Republicans sometimes said. (Coincidentally, Biden was also super bad, and all the other 15 Republican candidates that Trump ran against in 2016, plus all his current challengers for the 2024 nomination, are also super bad? No.)

When asked why you support a candidate, there’s a tendency to cite some policy reasons, because you think that’s what you’re supposed to say. You’re not supposed to say that you like hearing schoolyard insults, nor would you necessarily admit that to yourself even if that’s the truth. But I’m pretty sure that Trump’s appeal includes the insults, lack of respect for social norms, etc. That’s why Trump’s base hasn’t rushed over to the other candidates (DeSantis, Haley, Ramaswamy) who are trying to offer Trumpian policies “without Trump’s baggage”.

Someone on Facebook once commented that Trump “is the only one who cares about America.” I found this genuinely shocking — that someone would think that Trump cares about America. I had thought it was about as obvious as it could be that Donald Trump doesn’t care at all about America, nor about anything else that isn’t Donald Trump. I remain perplexed as to how someone got the impression that he did. It can’t be as simple as him just saying that he cares about America, could it?

There probably aren’t many MAGA Republicans reading this. But just in case you’re one of those under the impression that Trump cares about America and wants to make it stronger, let’s talk about that.

2. How to Destroy America

2.1. America’s Advantage

As mentioned in another post, America is utterly kicking ass as a society. Things are going vastly better here than in almost all other societies throughout human history. We are richer, freer, safer, smarter, happier, etc. See: https://fakenous.substack.com/p/is-america-failing-or-kicking-ass

If you’re in such an amazing situation, your first priority should probably be to hold on to that, to avoid sliding into the horrible situation that almost all societies throughout history have been in. If we somehow lose what we have, it won’t be easy to get it back—you can see that by looking at how hard it is to get other countries to get that thing.

2.2. Why?

But what is it that America has? Two incomplete answers:

• Well-designed institutions — with “checks and balances”, separation of powers, etc.

• Constitutional rights — free speech, the right to bear arms, etc.

Those are important, but they’re not enough. Note how the U.S. could not export its success to Iraq or Afghanistan. You can write whatever you want into the constitution, but it won’t mean anything if the human beings in the society don’t have liberal democratic values. They’ll just keep killing and oppressing each other and ignore the laws. So we come to the key factor:

• Liberal democratic norms.

They include things like toleration, respectful discourse, respect for the established democratic process, social trust, orderly transfer of power, and low levels of corruption. Most people accept these norms and act accordingly most of the time.

2.3. How norms work

Human beings perceive that certain rules and values are the currently accepted norms of their society. We strive to imitate others, so we follow those norms. When we do this, we contribute to further transmitting those norms. That’s why norms are usually stable over time.

Typically, if someone flouts a norm, they will be punished by other members of the society who have internalized the norm. This, again, reinforces the norm.

If someone very blatantly violates a norm, and very visibly fails to get punished, or even gets rewarded, that undermines the norm. Observers conclude that maybe the erstwhile norm isn’t the norm anymore. If that happens enough, the norm ceases to exist.

Norms often work together; e.g., free speech, toleration, and respect for democratic process are mutually reinforcing. Undermining a norm can also undermine a set of interconnected norms. Chaos can be contagious: if you see people violating certain social norms and getting away with it, you might start to feel that social norms across the board can be disregarded.

All this is the sort of thing that conservatives used to appreciate. That’s why they supported respect for traditions, law, and order.

So the best way to destroy America is probably to reward people for blatantly violating key norms of liberal democracy.

3. Is Trump Destroying America?

Trump attempted a coup against the American democratic system, similar to what happens in Third World dictatorships. That’s not an exaggeration or a partisan opinion; that’s just a matter of fact. By the way, virtually all of the Republican elites perfectly well know this.

I’m not referring to his telling people to “march to the Capitol” on Jan. 6. I’m referring to his concerted plan to overturn the 2020 election and cling to power after he was voted out. In case you don’t know all this:

3.1. The Big Lie

In America, on losing an election, you call your opponent to concede, then hold a press conference where you congratulate the winner, thank your supporters, and move on. At least, that’s how we used to do things.

Obviously, Trump knew that he lost the election. His own people repeatedly investigated allegations of voter fraud and found them false, but he kept repeating them anyway. As he explained to Mark Meadows, “I don’t want people to know we lost.” All this is in the January 6 Committee Report: www.govinfo.gov/collection/january-6th-committee-final-report (see p. 20).

He was always planning to just lie and say that he won if he lost. Here is Steve Bannon, before the election, explaining Trump’s plan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxNoUnxN_cs. Bannon’s prediction came true days later.

This isn’t surprising, as it fits with everything we’ve seen about Trump’s character. It also fits with his pledge in 2016, when he said he would accept the election outcome “if I win”, implying that he would refuse to accept it if he lost. His crowd, eager for the end of democracy, erupted in applause: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Qob8rlMWGw.

3.2. Pence

Trump repeatedly tried to convince Mike Pence to refuse to count the electoral votes from some states where Trump lost, so he could get the Republican-controlled Congress to crown him President. He knew this was illegal, as his advisors repeatedly told him, and as is obvious to common sense. (What would be the point of having elections if the Vice President could just decide to ignore the outcome?)

Surprisingly, Mike Pence grew a spine and refused. Next time, Trump will pick his sycophants more carefully.

3.3. Fake Electors Scheme

Trump and his team literally convened fake electors to produce fraudulent certificates saying that he won several states that he in fact lost. He told the fake electors that their certificates would only be used if he won his court challenges. He lost all his court cases, but then he had the fake vote counts sent to Mike Pence anyway and tried to have Pence count them instead of the real electoral votes.

Trump and his team knew that everyone in Congress as well as most of the country would know this was fraudulent. They hoped to get away with it anyway through the sheer corruption of Republican officials. Trump’s style is the crime in plain sight: If he wants your wallet, he’ll grab it right in front of your face, then tell you that you’re the one who stole the wallet. A third of people will believe him, or pretend to believe him, and start fighting you to protect “Trump’s wallet”.

This is the kind of crime that is most damaging to social norms.

3.4. Georgia

Trump tried to convince Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger to falsify the vote count from Georgia. “I just want to find 11,780 votes,” he said (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3hrN0cP58Y). He tried to intimidate Raffensberger, saying that “the people of Georgia are angry”, that Raffensberger would be voted out of office for not supporting the President, that not finding the votes was a crime and that “that’s a big risk to you”. At one point, referring to Raffensberger’s denial of the election fraud claims, Trump said “I think it’s very dangerous for you to say that.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRg0-62BpZI)

Trump’s plans failed because Mike Pence, Brad Raffensberger, and a few other Republican officials refused to go along. If all the Republicans had gone along, there’s no telling what would have happened, other than that it would have been pure chaos and perhaps the stupidest civil war in history.

3.5. Who Cares About Orderly Transfer of Power?

I can’t tell whether Republican voters don’t know all of the above, or they just don’t see what’s bad about it (??). So, here’s the problem.

In crappy dictatorships, there is often a fight over who gets to take over when a leader leaves (e.g., by dying), because they either don’t have established rules for the succession, or people don’t respect the rules. As a result, people get killed. More importantly, the people who wind up on top in such a system are not people who are good at governing. They are the most vicious and unscrupulous people. If you have a system in which the most ruthless, violent power-mongers are in charge of everyone else, then everything else in your society is going to go to shit.

This is not a small thing. It’s a huge part of why things go well in the U.S. and terribly in Third World dictatorships. I.e., the U.S. has a long tradition of orderly transfer of power, which many other states don’t. If we want to throw that out and have a complete free-for-all every four years, then Trump isn’t going to be the worst ruler we get.

By the way, of course democracies don’t produce the morally best leaders either. They produce leaders who are good at winning popularity contests, which is pretty lame and quite far from the people who are best at leading. But that is nevertheless a million times better than getting leaders who are the best at killing, breaking rules, and back-stabbing.

4. How Is He Getting Away with It?

It’s difficult to think of how Trump could more blatantly violate the norms of liberal democracy, apart from assassinating his opponents. If Trump actually murders Joe Biden before the election, will Republican voters still vote for him?

Normally, when you blatantly violate societal norms, you get punished for it, which is why people with no respect for norms don’t succeed. Today, average Republican voters are so alienated from elite culture that they want a blatant norm-violator. It’s unsurprising that a person who flagrantly violates norms throughout the campaign also flouts democratic norms while in office.

Democracy contains an internal tension: the masses have deeply undemocratic instincts. Thus, democracy itself has to be protected by the elites, from the masses. Trump is the outcome, so to speak, of too much democracy. Elites fear his base, and that prevents them from standing up to him.

It remains a mystery to me why Donald Trump isn’t in jail. It’s been two and a half years since his election crimes. I can’t believe that no prosecutor could get a case together in 2.5 years. Are they waiting for him to be elected again?

5. Will Biden Also Destroy America?

I think he’s unable to do the job due to cognitive decline. And this isn’t one of those easy jobs where you can go in unprepared twice a week and just wing it, where it doesn’t really matter if you totally screw up (you know, like being a professor).

My guess is that what happens when Joe can’t do the job is that other people take up the slack — his cabinet, other Democratic leaders, and the bureaucrats. This could result in bad decisions, inconsistent policies, and less Presidential work getting done. It probably won’t destroy America, though.

Conclusion

If you’re a Woke ideologue, antifa member, or member of ISIS, you should vote for Donald Trump in the next election, because he will do the most to accelerate America’s destruction.

Everyone else, find someone else to support.