This weekend I did a bit of doomscrolling about the global erosion of support for democracy, which research indicates is particularly pronounced among people in their 30s and 40s.
I was reminded of a finding in one of those NYT-Sienna polls a while back that showed Trump crushing Biden in Nevada.
“Which comes closest to your view about the political and economic system in America, even if none are exactly right?” the poll asked.
Among Nevada voters aged 30 to 44, an unsettling (to me anyway) 22% – more than any other age group – picked “The system needs to be torn down entirely.” Needless to say poll respondents said Trump was the one most likely to “tear down the system completely.”
I was also reminded of remarks (that have been getting a lot of attention this week) made by Republican nominee for vice president J.D. Vance in 2021 as he was ramping up his 2022 Senate bid.
“I think Trump is going to run again in 2024,” Vance said on a podcast. “I think that what Trump should do, if I was giving him one piece of advice: Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people.”
“And when the courts stop you,” Vance continued, “stand before the country, and say ‘the chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.’”
That last line of course is reportedly what Andrew Jackson infamously said after the Supreme Court ruled against the state of Georgia’s unconstitutional seizure of Cherokee land in the 1830s. (Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall could not enforce a ruling – it’s not like the Supreme Court has federal troops to enforce its ruling. But Jackson had some, which he sent to help Georgia push Cherokees into the deadly forced march to Oklahoma.)
Early this month the Supreme Court ruled that Trump (and theoretically any president, but the ruling was specifically aimed at protecting Trump) can break the law with immunity. Vance’s earlier concern that the U.S. Supreme Court might attempt to stop Trump from doing … anything at all … now seems outdated.
When people, their businesses, their families, their assets or their property, are hurt or jeopardized, sometimes they seek or rely on protection or remedy from the law. How will Nevadans, – especially the one in five of them aged 30 to 44 who say “the system needs to be torn down entirely” – feel if, along with democracy, the rule of law is discarded, replaced with an arbitrary cronyism that rewards those who are in favor with Trump and his courtiers and punishes those who aren’t?
Meanwhile, polling also suggests a number of voters, including and especially those in younger cohorts, may not be MAGA, but have become numbed enough by years of relentless Trumpism to consider voting for him anyway. If for no other reason than to, you know, shake things up.
Polling also suggests a number of voters have no use for Trump but they’re sick of the whole show and won’t vote at all, a decision which also works to Trump’s favor.
The U.S. has been flawed from the start, and still is. But relative to other world-historical global powers, it has a hell of a story to tell about the expansion of rights and freedom and prosperity.
Good gawd yes it’s imperfect. Opportunity, prosperity, and economic and social justice are not near as broadly and fairly shared as they should be.
But tossing aside the nation’s political and legal institutions and empowering a narcissistic sociopath as a quasi-monarch because prices went up a lot after covid seems a bit much.
