New stories for old – making sense of a political-constitutional rupture

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LAUNCELOT: I will send help as soon as I have accomplished a daring and heroic rescue in my own particular…

CONCORDE: Idiom, sir?

LAUNCELOT: …idiom!

– Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail

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Last week, before the US presidential election, there was uncertainty.

(This blog recorded that moment here.)

Few if any people had any idea about what would happen next.

Now many people are getting used to the news of the election, even if they are not happy (to say the least) with what happened.

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For many, the re-election of Donald Trump as president was not how the story of 2016 was supposed to end.

His presidency was supposed to have been a one-off, an aberration. It was to be regarded as a moment of electoral madness, albeit one which has had unfortunate lingering structural effects for the composition of the supreme court and other judicial benches for at least a generation.

In this way the story was seen as similar to that of Brexit in the United Kingdom, where another 2016 moment of electoral madness also had unfortunate lingering structural effects – in that case of the United Kingdom being outside the European Union for at least a generation.

And now, that perhaps comforting sense of distance has been snatched away.

It is instead happening again.

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“Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was, Oh no, not again.”

– The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams

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This time round, of course, the rookies of the first presidency are now seasoned veterans – with four years’ experience and a further four years’ reflection of the failures of the first presidency.

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In 1852, Karl Marx wrote of the return of a Napoleon Bonaparte to power in France (emphasis added):

“Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Caussidière for Danton, Louis Blanc for Robespierre, the Montagne of 1848 to 1851 for the Montagne of 1793 to 1795, the nephew for the uncle. And the same caricature occurs in the circumstances of the second edition of the Eighteenth Brumaire.”

Given the mishaps of the first Trump presidency, it looks like Marx’s famous maxim should now be adapted to read “the first time as farce, the second time as tragedy”.

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“Here’s where the story ends
Oh, here’s where the story ends

It’s that little souvenir, of a terrible year, which makes my eyes feel sore”

– The Sundays

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But.

Nothing is certain in human affairs, and the new presidency may not actually go the way its supporters hope (and the rest of us fear).

Over on Bluesky, the always thoughtful and perceptive “The Stylite” commenter averred the following:

In 2019 in the United Kingdom, of course, the gods punished Boris Johnson by granting him what he wanted – a huge majority and a general election mandate. The “big dog” caught the car.

And soon Johnson was gone, not only from Downing Street but also from Parliament.

What happened in 2016 had created an opportunity for the populists – and 2019 was when that opportunity was flunked.

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Could 2024 be the 2019 of the United States?

In the United States, Trump and the Trumpites are generally oppositional – grievance-mongers and complainers about the Washington elite and so on.

It is not a mindset that adapts well to actual government.

And although there is “Project 2025” – there is otherwise little sense of what the new administration will actually do. The early appointments do not indicate any great seriousness.

Will the gods punish Trump and the Trumpites with also giving them what they want?

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Who knows.

But whatever happens, the old story of Trump’s election in 2016 being a one-off has to be replaced with a new story – one which has not taken shape.

And until and unless those opposed to Trump can make sense of what has happened, then there is little chance that they will revive to take advantage of any failures and disappointments in what is to come – to escape this dreadful moment.

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CONCORDE: Quickly, sir! This way!

LAUNCELOT: No, it’s not in my idiom! I must escape more….

CONCORDE: Dramatically, sir?

LAUNCELOT: …dramatically!

– Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail

 

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