Republicans won their power by changing political wars into cultural conflicts.  I can’t begin to tell you if it was an intentional plan or just dumb luck, but every election these days is more about winning than any actual goal I can find.  People seem to buy that, anyway.  There’s a huge investment in winning, but all the effort ends at the election. Once a Republican wins office, there are almost no expectations they’ll do more than try to keep winning: that is, block the ‘other side’.

Remember back when we were taught that democracy worked because people vote based on which candidate offers them a better deal?  Yeah, me neither, but I remember reading the theory. The idea was that self-interest was a critical part of keeping everything in our democracy on track.  Part of “The wisdom of our Founding Fathers.”

But with every election, we get less and less of that.  Not that Trump promised his supporters less — he promised then the moon and the stars — but we all knew he was lying about that.  Yes, even the people voting for him knew he was full of it.  They’re not idiots.

There’s a wonderful Op-Ed in today’s New York Times: The Great Performance of Our Failing President.  Go read it; you’ll learn more from him than from me. (And Op-Eds aren’t terribly long.) The author is Geoffrey Kabaservice, a political historian who makes cogent arguments about “toxic polarization”, conspiracy theories, and why Trump seems to walk on water.

Mr. Trump cast himself during the election as the sole candidate able to break through Washington gridlock and get things done. Will his failure as a problem solver cause his supporters to abandon him?

I doubt it. Scratch a Trump supporter, and you’re likely to find someone deeply pessimistic about America and its future. Few believe that he will be able to bring back the good times (however they define them) because they’re convinced that the system is rigged: The “deep state” is too entrenched, the demographic tide too advanced and the global elite too powerful to allow real change. Still, they appreciate President Trump for fighting the fight, especially when it involves going against the wishes of his own party and the customary norms of presidential behavior.

They expect him to lose, but not because his ideas are crap or because he’s a buffoon.  They expect him to fail because he will not be allowed to win; the system is too deeply rigged.

In many ways I agree; I just think they’re going for the wrong targets.  I lament how big business has captured the soul of both parties and twisted them to their agenda.  Even though I’ve seen how Republicans sold out earlier and deeper, both parties are clearly tainted by their fiscal masters.

And I’ve had to watch the long, steady decline in middle- and working-class power as the ultra-rich and the deeply established use their positions to solidify their positions.  When I was working, every month or two, memos from our masters blew our way, explaining what else they were taking away from us now.  The retirement will be slightly reduced, complaints will only go through arbitration, here are the medical things we’ve stopped covering, and your vacation will now take longer to accrue.  Sick leave has been cancelled; use annual leave instead.   I can’t pretend I was especially happy, and at least in theory, I was one of the winners.

Bernie Sanders was riding that same wave of discontent. He told people the game was rigged, and he was right a lot of the time, too.

So, here’s a mental exercise.  If Trump was found to be colluding with Putin — say, trading his election (and maybe a ton of money) for removing US sanctions — I don’t see his followers abandoning him.  They’d just see it as more of the deep state politics.  Half of them would see Trump as a martyr, destroyed because he got too close to winning.

And again, this isn’t something Trump created.  The Republican party has been pushing their people further into this horrid, ‘win or die’ dystopian vision in every election.  Republicans are just pissed because Trump is wearing out the brand.