And now we begin to see the true cost of Trumpism, and the lingering cancer it will bequeath our body politic long after the man is gone.

In fact, the quicker Trump departs — through self-implosion or impeachment — the faster the GOP will be able to cement his legacy while heaving a sigh of relief that the albatross is cut from their neck.

Which is why we must be careful what we wish for. The sooner Trump is gone, the sooner the GOP will use his legacy as the “new normal.”

Consider Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, (more) tax cuts for the rich, the bloating of the defense budget, increased penalties for nonviolent drug offenses, attacks on sanctuary cities and defunding Planned Parenthood (and attacks on women’s rights in general).

The list could go on, but none of these actions taken by Trump fly in the face of standard GOP policies and beliefs. With Trump gone, the GOP will embrace those issues, while repudiating the man. (Any Republican in a threatened seat can either remain a Trumpista, or jettison him at will.)

Now, can you imagine the Democrats running against those issues in 2020? Trying to right the ship of state that Trump (and Steve Bannon) have steered into the vortex will get the Dems saddled with the same stigma as “tax loving, defense hating, abortion inducing, immigrant loving, limousine liberals” who can’t stop talking about Trump even though he is gone.

There might be some in the GOP who would wish to rejoin the Paris agreement, but the notion of “re-negotiating for more favorable terms” will be a Republican rallying cry and Dems will be hard pressed to ignore it.

Rolling back Trump’s round of tax cuts for the rich will be near impossible, and the 10 percent increase to the defense budget — even if Trump has to force feed it to the military as if it were a Gitmo detainee on hunger strike — can only be rolled back if the Dems can stomach being once soft on terrorism.

And that is just in the “halls of power.” On the street, the alt-right (formerly known as “racist SOBs”) has begun their “free speech movement” (talk about cultural appropriation!) as a tactic to control street-level discourse the same way Trump, the GOP and Fox Nation do in the media. The only difference is that these wannabe storm troopers are ready to use violence to silence the resistance. After Trump is gone, the alt-right/racist SOBs will keep his fire burning and will hold it to the feet of any Republican they see as slacking. Again, the “Trump Rump.”

As with most things political in our age, it can be traced back to President Ronald Reagan and the “Reagan revolution.” The true lasting effect of “Reaganism” was to shift the terms of mainstream political discourse so far to the right that it has never shifted back.

Unless we are careful, that will be the lasting effect of Trump as well — to have moved the goal posts into a dark zone from which it might be impossible to move them back. It is not his buffoonery, misogyny nor bigotry that will be his legacy, but the institutionalization, the mainstreaming, of his once “outlaw” ideology, because the GOP now has a semipermanent “Trumpista Wing” that must be courted on Trumpian terms for the GOP to win nationally over the next few cycles, or even forevermore.

So, what is to be done?

First, as said, let us be careful what we wish for. The faster Trump is shuffled off, the quicker the GOP will mainline Trumpismo. The best bet for the republic is a slow death for his administration. The drip, drip, drip of corruption; the rat’s nest of Russian dirty dealings; the festering nepotism; investigations reproducing like rabbits. Death by a thousand cuts would be the best ending — a long ugly ending beyond the mid-term elections of 2018.

Of course that means we have to suffer the ills and even illegalities of his presidency, but the removal of President Trump is not the first issue. Rather it is the defeat of what of what is now, sadly, called Trumpism, before it tragically becomes part of our political DNA.

Joe Gannon, a novelist and teacher, lives in Northampton. He can be reached at jgannonoped@gmail.com.

]]>