Don’t underestimate the impact on attitudes. It’s less about beating Trump the individual and more about beating the methods he represents, and demonstrating their ineffectiveness outside of the primaries.
To use WW2 as a convenient example, the gross mistakes the Axis powers made that led to their own defeats are powerful for illustrating how ineffective their systems are. Like how the Japanese thought Pearl Harbor and the Germans thought invading Russia were good ideas. The simple fact that they screw up so obviously and massively decreases the popularity of fascism in the modern day.
While we’ll always have niche conspiracy theorists and such, it’s only a subset of people that swallow all that hook, line and sinker, and that subset was unlikely to be won over in the first place. More balanced sorts will be more willing to seriously weigh the considerations, though, and if Trump’s methods ultimately prove foolish, that’s a strong point going forward.
It won’t be so simple as fixing everything by beating Trump, that’s just a single battle in a broader, longer ideological debate. But it helps, far more than a loss would.
Don’t underestimate the impact on attitudes. It’s less about beating Trump the individual and more about beating the methods he represents, and demonstrating their ineffectiveness outside of the primaries.
To use WW2 as a convenient example, the gross mistakes the Axis powers made that led to their own defeats are powerful for illustrating how ineffective their systems are. Like how the Japanese thought Pearl Harbor and the Germans thought invading Russia were good ideas. The simple fact that they screw up so obviously and massively decreases the popularity of fascism in the modern day.
While we’ll always have niche conspiracy theorists and such, it’s only a subset of people that swallow all that hook, line and sinker, and that subset was unlikely to be won over in the first place. More balanced sorts will be more willing to seriously weigh the considerations, though, and if Trump’s methods ultimately prove foolish, that’s a strong point going forward.
It won’t be so simple as fixing everything by beating Trump, that’s just a single battle in a broader, longer ideological debate. But it helps, far more than a loss would.