Life After Trump

"...people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.” – Hebrews 9:27

Who knows if there's anything to this, but there's been speculation lately about Trump's health. From his swollen ankles to the wounds on his hands to his weird talk about going to heaven, there are signs that he is seriously ill. Some people believe that the current state of the nation, as we slide deeper and deeper into authoritarianism, dictatorship and fascism, is completely due to Trump, and that his death would result in some sort of national "reset". 

I wouldn't hold my breath.

There are several strands interweaving in our national tapestry that are contributing to the current state of affairs:

• Trump and his cultish hold on much of the electorate
• Behind the scenes actors such as the architects of Project 2025 who have thought through how to turn theory into operational reality
• The ongoing Republican efforts to retain power by disenfranchising portions of the voting public
• The Supreme Court majority that appears to agree with extreme right wing interpretations of the law

The Project 2025 authors are the brains behind much of what is going on in the federal government right now. Kevin Roberts and The Heritage Foundation have spent years documenting what they believed the federal government should look like and how it should be run. They have not trafficked in vague ideas and catchy slogans, but in concrete plans to remake the government. Their over all goals and ideology can be summarized as:

• Dismantling the "Administrative State", by which they mean eliminating the ability of regulatory agencies to effectively execute and enforce the laws creating them. 
• The President is the head of a "unitary executive" branch of government. This means that the president is the only authority regarding what any agency of the federal government can do.  This includes whether that agency can exist, despite any laws to the contrary. 
• Stricter immigration policies
• Government policy should be oriented toward traditional conservative Christian values, aka Christian Nationalism

Some of these views are concrete such as the unitary executive and dismantling regulatory agencies, while Christian Nationalism is more implied than spelled out. Officially Project 2025 was not connected to the Trump campaign, nor has it been overtly adopted by the administration. However, Project 2025 was virtually indistinguishable from Agenda 47, Trump official campaign platform, and several Heritage Foundation members are now ensconced in the administration. Who do you think is writing all those executive orders?

How would the Project 2025 influence be different if Trump died and Vice President Vance became president? (Or any post-Trump Republican president)

Hallmarks of Trump's leadership style include his utter ignorance of how things work, his lack of desire to learn how things work, his childish need for adulation, his laziness when it comes to the hard work required of the job, his tendency to take things personally and seek retribution when wronged and his buffoonish public persona. I have no doubt that a more restrained right wing president would have gotten more of the conservative agenda accomplished in the last half year than Trump did, simply because there wouldn't have been the daily distractions of the crazy utterances from Trump himself every day. For example, I imagine that the dismantling of the federal work force would have been undertaken in an organized, methodical fashion, rather than the clown show put on by Musk and DOGE. We would have barely noticed the Department of Education being eliminated and there would be no silly renaming of the Gulf of Mexico. paving over the Rose Garden, or gilding the Oval Office. There would be no daily announcements of ridiculous tariffs or tiffs with his "enemies" on social media. All the truly horrible things would still be enacted, but we probably wouldn't realize that they were happening. 

The Trump as Cult Leader strand is still important though. As incompetent as he is at actual governing there is no one out there who can take his place at campaigning. The whole MAGA "movement" is all about personal fealty to Trump himself and only peripherally to any coherent ideology. We have seen time and time again how a position supposedly so important to the base get abandoned because Trump changed his mind. Like the "it's the economy" crowd no longer concerned about rising grocery prices. Even when there appeared to be a rebellion, like when many from the QAnon portion of his base appeared to turn against him, it seems to wind down and they're back to hanging on Trump's every word. Sure, there are some among the Trump cult who would never vote for a Democrat because they believe the propaganda that Democrats are all pedophilic communist gun grabbers, but you might see some moderate Republicans speaking up again when the fear of having their careers torpedoed by Trump's ire fades away. Republican voters might actually start thinking about their choices. 

But even absent Trump and The Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, Republicans are conservatives at heart and aren't really opposed to the goals of Project 2025. Due mainly Trump's influence over the last ten years, the bulk of Republican office holders have been right wing extremists, and often White Christian Nationalists. The extreme right wing has taken control of most state Republican parties. Despite their rhetoric claiming to represent the majority of Americans, and despite the electoral failures of the Democratic Party nationally, Republicans know that their influence is waning. If they believed that their star was rising there wouldn't be a need to engage in the numerous anti-democratic maneuvers designed to discourage or outright disenfranchise those most likely to vote against them. A truly democratic society would set things up so that more people could vote, not make it more difficult to register or to get to the polls. Here are a few examples from a previous article where Republicans have ignored the will of the people:

• Wisconsin voters elected a Democrat as governor. Before he could take office, the Republican legislature voted to strip the governor of many of his powers
• North Carolina did the same thing
• The Democratic North Carolina governor vetoed a budget that the legislature with a Republican majority submitted, but they didn't have enough votes to override. They waited until the entire Democratic caucus was at a 9-11 memorial and voted to  override the veto, since the 2/3 override threshold wasn't 2/3 of the entire legislature, but 2/3 of those present
• Several states, including my own state of Nebraska, voted to expand Medicaid coverage. The Republican governor has instructed state agencies to delay implementation and to throw up roadblocks to prevent people from actually utilizing it
• The same Nebraska governor, when faced with Republican legislators (in a ostensibly non-partisan legislature) who did not vote with him, he bankrolled primary challenges to those "disloyal" Republicans. 
• Lincoln Nebraska Republicans bankrolled a ballot initiative to term limit a Democratic mayor who had already announced that he was running for another term
• In Maine, South Dakota, Nevada and Oklahoma citizen ballot initiatives were overturned by the Republican governors and the legislatures
• In Florida, a ballot initiative restored voting rights to convicted felons who had served their sentences. The Republican governor and legislature instituted roadblocks that would prevent most from actually being able to vote (this was overturned by the courts)
• Let's not forget voter suppression laws. They require identification, and then close DMV's and other places where ID can be secured. 
• Just this past year in Nebraska, the supposedly nonpartisan legislature, which has a filibuster-proof Republican majority, overturned, delayed, slow-walked or watered down several initiatives passed by the people

The Republicans simply don't care what the majority wants. And in order to stay in power they will suppress the vote and gerrymander their way to permanent majorities. Texas Republicans have escalated the gerrymander game by redistricting halfway through a census period. Gerrymandering doesn't affect presidential elections (except in Nebraska and Maine) but a permanent Republican House majority will neuter any hypothetical Democratic president. 

Finally, there's the Supreme Court. District and Appellate federal courts have done a wonderful job slowing down some of Trump's dictatorial actions, yet when the appeals make it to the Supreme Court, the 6-3 majority has been very friendly to Trump's agenda. Thomas and Alito will be 78 and 76 respectively at the end of Trump's term, while the rest of them are in their 50's and 60's. A Democrat would need to be elected president, Thomas and Alito would have to die and we'd have to hope the Senate would either be in Democratic hands or not pull a McConnell if in Republican hands before we would see any change in the court's makeup. The current majority seems very sympathetic to right wing goals unless egregiously unconstitutional. 

The bottom line is that things may not get any better if Trump keels over and dies tomorrow. At the very least the Democrats would need to gain a majority in the House (the Senate seems out of reach for the foreseeable future) and moderate Republicans will need to come out of hiding.