ASSOCIATED PRESS

Big daddy Donald Trump has, unfortunately, won re-election with a popular mandate. My reaction this time around has been significantly more measured than in 2016. Back then, I had some hope with the upswell of resistance against Trump’s truly horrible beliefs and positions. There was a real sense of solidarity; and the possibility that at least a concept of a plan would develop to neuter Trump, and, more importantly, his racist, xenophobic, nativist ideology.

Yet, it didn’t take long to see the “resistance” in many ways didn’t have any consistent policies except “but orange man bad.” I watched in dismay as an enormous amount of organizing potential was wasted on the Russiagate hoax. I watched as truly ghoulish figures and institutions like James Comey, Robert Mueller, and the FBI were lionized and portrayed as the vanguard of the resistance. This is the same FBI created to destroy progressive movements; the same people who routinely spied on anti-war protesters and Muslims; who groomed underage, developmentally disabled children into committing acts of “terrorism.” The CIA and NSA were suddenly arbiters of truth if they disagreed with Trump despite the Iraq lies, Libya lies, and the fact they regularly violate our rights by spying on us. Literal war criminals like George Bush and Dick Cheney were somehow rehabilitated into decent human beings, because they were more respectable than Trump. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinsinger became honorable patriots for opposing Trump’s insurrection (the lowest hanging fruit) despite overwhelmingly supporting the same Trump policies that are so reprehensible.

Trump’s authoritarian and proto-fascistic tendencies were not met with legislation to restrain executive authority. No, national Democrats repeatedly approved his war powers, surveillance powers, increased his military budget despite these same politicians describing Trump as literally the second coming of Hitler.

Somehow it only got worse after Trump got out of office. Every attempt to criticize the Biden administration was met with the most obnoxious refrain “but Trump,” “but Trump is worse,” “but Trump is more mentally incompetent,” etcetera, ad nauseum. Despite Leftists opposing Trump even more than liberals, every time it was pointed out how Biden’s policies (or lack thereof) were failing and would lead to another Trump administration, we received nothing but ad hominems, red herrings, non-sequitars, and straw person logical fallacies.

From a purely practical perspective, what has this “resistance” ideology of Trump derangement gotten us? In 2016, Trump lost the popular vote by 3 million votes. He never once had an approval rating over 50% during his first term. Trump again lost the popular vote in 2020, yet his vote share increased by 11 million. Four years later, after the absolute failure of the Biden administration, Trump finally won the popular vote, increasing his 2020 performance by 3 million votes. Clearly “but Trump” is not an effective strategy at convincing voters. The electorate will punish you if you fail to provide economic gains, fail to respond to corporate and natural disasters, and give their money away to the proxy war in Ukraine or the genocide in Gaza.

If you actually want to fight against the ideologies that put Trump back in office, BEWARE OF TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME!

— Zachary Gittrich is a writer from Peoria