There is a certain sadness to this state of affairs. Many voters were desperate for a straightforward alternative to what they saw as the stale establishmentarian liberalism of the Biden-Harris administration. So they projected its opposite, as they understood it, onto their only other viable option—and Trump, ever attuned to the needs of his audience, was more than happy to humor their hopes. But in actuality, the 2024 election was not a traditional binary choice between two coherently opposed political alternatives, the electoral equivalent of the Yankees versus the Red Sox. It was the Yankees versus a flaming tennis ball launched into orbit by a Tesla rocket—a choice not between two teams but between completely different sports. Many voters who thought they knew the rules to the game and would turn out the winners are now discovering that they didn’t and won’t.
This is why the more Trump’s presidency progresses, the more support he will lose. Back in November, Phetasy, the Spectator columnist, said that she was “voting for Donald Trump, but not really for Donald Trump—I’m voting against the left and many of the things that they stand for.” In 2024, Trump benefited from this dynamic. But come the 2026 midterms, he will have provided voters like her, who have been burned by their illusions, with something new to vote against. The problem with running as the candidate of people’s dreams is that, eventually, they wake up.
This confused, mushy middle only knows what it doesn't want, voting No to this, No to that in an endless nightmare of No. It only ends when someone offers something—a substantive alternative—that inspires a majority of Americans to say Yes.
And so as the American electorate continues this endless, somnambulist flailing, the Techno-Capitalist oligarchs advance their interests under Republicans and consolidate them under Democrats, and a transhumanist dystopia becomes evermore our likely future. This movement toward dystopia is the underlying structural reality of our political economy right now. Everything else is a distraction, a soporific to keep us drowsing.
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