Raw Story: Trump's movement 'more fragile than it seems' -- and is about to implode: analysis

[Dennis Donovan]

Raw Story - Trump's movement 'more fragile than it seems' — and is about to implode: analysis

Brad Reed
December 2, 2024 10:13AM ET

The Atlantic's George Packer believes there are important lessons that Democrats need to take away from President-elect Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 election.

However, he also believes that Democrats need to avoid overestimating the strength of Trump's electoral coalition, which he believes could split relatively quickly.

"The Trump Reaction is more fragile than it now seems," he writes. "Trump’s behavior in the last weeks of the campaign did not augur a coherent second presidency. He will surround himself with ideologues, opportunists, and crackpots, and because he has no interest in governing, they will try to fill the vacuum and turn on one another."

Packer then zeroes in on the contradictions within the Trump coalition that will make it very hard for the president-elect to keep everything held together.

"The Trump administration, with a favorable Congress, will overreach on issues such as abortion and immigration, soon alienating important parts of its new coalition," he argues. "It will enact economic policies that favor the party’s old allies among the rich at the expense of its new supporters among the less well-off. It’s quite possible that, approaching 80, Trump will find himself once more among the least popular presidents in the country’s history."

He nonetheless says that Democrats need to perform a mental balancing act of both correcting the errors of the Biden-Harris administration while at the same time getting on war footing against an administration that will be unprecedently hostile to them.

/snip

[dalton99a]

1. Democrats should learn to fight hard and fight dirty.

Hit hard, hit fast, repeat, and do not let up.

Do whatever it takes to WIN.

Fuck purity.

Fuck the high road.

Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures

[Magoo48]

13. At the same time grassroots must provide another front across the sociocultural landscape.

Both groups must visibly and noisily support on another.

[brakester]

14. I concur.

I think it is long past due for the Dems to hit back hard!

I would like to see a winning combination of our deep love for humanity and the earth with our reverence for fairplay AND, add the fight to it!

I'm proud that the Dems are so upright and respectful throughout this whole crisis! I don't ever want us to debase ourselves and copy the right moral bankruptcy !!!

[Ocelot II]

2. Excellent Atlantic article. Direct links here:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/01/trump-reelection-voter-demographic-change/680752/
https://archive.ph/rs5KQ

[bucolic_frolic]

3. I don't see how they turn on each other, they scratch each others' backs

Why does a dictator need to hold it all together? This is pure plunder with chaos to confuse, disarm, and own the libs.

[Dennis Donovan]

5. Plunder amidst chaos.

I think the degree to which they do this will be shocking to even the not-easily shocked.

A blinding free-for-all in the first 100 days.

[dalton99a]

6. +1. Trump's American carnage depends on chaos

[Gore1FL]

11. I've never known the right to play well together.

They go along with each other when it is in their own self-interest, but they are the opposite of the Three Musketeers in that sense.

[J_William_Ryan]

4. "Democrats need to avoid overestimating the strength of Trump's electoral coalition..."

Correct.

Democrats also need to stop questioning their principles, goals, and policy positions – turning into the reprehensible right isn’t the answer.

Otherwise, yes – Trump will overreach, alienating Trump voters who aren’t part of the Trump Cult; he’ll grow more unpopular and despised, losing support of Congressional Republicans who don’t want to lose control of Congress in 2026.

[Think. Again.]

7. "correcting the errors of the Biden-Harris administration"

??????

Nonsense. We are actually up against criminal nazis, that's the only problem.

[patphil]

8. I've said it several times on DU: Trump doesn't govern, he rules. He's not a leader, he's a boss.

He has no need to surround himself with competent administrators. They aren't there to administer the laws as they relate to their positions, but to implement the decrees of their boss. In actuality, their job is to wreck the administrative branch of government, with the idea in mind that the whole branch will be rebuilt into an organized crime operation, with Trump as it's one and only authority.
He also plans to co-opt Congress; rendering them powerless to do anything other than his will. The same with the Judiciary.

Trump's ultimate goal is to rule; to be the king of the United States.

[republianmushroom]

9. He is a frail old lame duck, president.

Keeping the hoards together will require a skill that I don't think the convicted felon has.

[Ray Bruns]

10. What?

https://m.

[Harker]

12. Leader Jeffries quickly crushed any perception that Trumpsky had a mandate.

They have to be thwarted whenever and however possible.

I don't like having to rely even a little on the courts and the Senate, but that might be all there is.

[tanyev]

15. I always keep a bottle of champagne in the fridge--just in case,

but I’m not going to hold my breath for this. Wait and see.