'After Trump comes others': Expert predicts 'Trumpism' has a long future

Matthew Chapman
April 27, 2023

Donald Trump (Photo by Brendan Smialowski for AFP)

When former President Donald Trump leaves politics, there are many more to lead his charge among right-wingers, an expert said in an interview with Salon Friday.

There's little debate Trump has been seen a figurehead to extremists, reporter and author Jeff Sharlet said. And, since he left the White House in 2021, that movement hasn't faltered. On the contrary, said Sharlet in the interview, it's only growing bolder and more determined to seize control.

"The struggle is long. Too many people want a happy ending," said Sharlet. "After Trump comes others. I think the Never Trumpers have a much clearer sense of this reality than a lot of liberals and even leftists. And for them, it's more obvious because they lost their whole social world."

All of this comes as far-right governors around the country restrict free expression — of which Florida is ground zero — and as evangelicals embrace extremist conspiracy theories as they face the decline of church membership in a changing society.

"The Trumpocene is like the Age of Reagan," he continued. "The Age of Reagan goes from 1980 to 2016. Reaganism became our American vernacular. Remember, Barack Obama would cite Ronald Reagan, the country's first black president was working in the Reaganesque vernacular.

"In the book, I profile a preacher who says that Donald Trump is coming back, whether that means the man himself or the spirit in the flesh of another. So many liberals are saying, 'Oh, but DeSantis is down and out!' Do you really think this is over that quick? The damage done, the hurt we felt? What about grief? What about mourning? We've lost a lot. That's going to take years to process and heal."

Sharlet, who explores these issues more deeply in his new book "The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War," discussed how at one Trump rally he met a "sweet looking" old couple who were casually fantasizing about violence.

"Violence — or at least, the imagination of violence — can be fun. Sex is fun too," said Sharlet. "Trump is promising you the pleasure and freedom of transgression and ugliness. Horror is fun. Be it the Trump rallies or the militia churches that I ended up visiting, they indulge in white supremacism, even as they draw some people of color in with their gravitational power.

"Part of America's culture is violence, horror, gross sexuality, misogyny and so on. This is part of what 'The Undertow' in the title of the book is. Part of what Trumpism or fascism is saying is, 'Instead of swimming against the current, what if you just fell back into it?' So many of the people who end up supporting Trump were swimming against the current before."