Donald Trump is going to win – America isn’t

On Sunday, former US President Donald Trump was the victim of an assassination attempt. The Republican nominee had his ear grazed and was quickly rushed by the Secret Service, though many are still criticizing the event’s apparent lack of safety.

Immediately, the candidate and others were cashing in on the spectacle with T-shirts and other paraphernalia – suggesting that, as always, it will be Trump that walks away victorious.

It is no exaggeration to say that this spectacle has cemented another Trump term. Many experts and Republican officials believe that Donald Trump has narcissistic personality disorder. Part of the narcissist playbook includes playing the victim. When victimhood is usurped by the narcissist, it’s a wash for the opposition. In this case, Trump has a legitimate claim to that title, and he will ride it into the sunset. The shooter, in this case, essentially handed the former president the greatest gift he ever could have.

It should also be noted that victimhood is one of the main animating factors of the MAGA movement. Trump and the current Republican Party are leaning into this energy, particularly white victimhood, to establish a politics that seeks to level the playing field for a previously unseen faction of rural white people that have lost out on opportunities as a result of globalization.

Trump’s decision in picking Ohio Senator JD Vance as his running mate on Monday was a reflection of this strategy. As a newly minted Cincinnati resident, like Vance, the feeling in the city is palpable. Southern Ohio is a battleground of burgeoning political and social attitudes. Many parts of the country are leaning into the utter destruction of community and egalitarian values, while others, particularly the younger generation, are embracing them. At the same time when racial strife and mass shootings are increasing, people are yearning for innocence and a connection to a higher purpose. 

With the selection of Vance, the Trump campaign has made its position clear on this matter. The New Right and its desire for an idealized past, as well as a protectionist foreign policy, will define the Republican Party for the foreseeable future. The Democratic Party, as it is inclined to do, is stuck in a politics that does not fit the current zeitgeist, evidenced by the candidacy of incumbent President Joe Biden, an 81-year-old. Biden’s lack of energy, charisma, and general inspiration are indicative of the failure of current Democratic politics, as is the party’s failing effort to suppress the emergence of its progressive flank. 

At the outset of this current presidential race, I made the comment on numerous occasions that the disunity of the Republican Party would set it up for failure. These mistakes have clearly been corrected. The GOP has long been the superior party in terms of resources, organization, and ideological unity. It has now produced a nascent politics that will yet again obliterate the decorum that had long defined American politics. Growing calls from within the Democratic Party to replace Biden, while entirely warranted, are a sure sign that the race is already over. 

In the grand scheme, there really cannot possibly be a winner this November. Whether an aging narcissist or an even more fossilized milquetoast liberal win, America loses. Joe Biden’s political programs have failed to inspire the country to the degree needed to ward off the malignant influence of Donald Trump. Trump’s pride, symbolic of the pride of a major swath of the country, will catch up to him and usher in untold suffering for the nation. It is such an inevitability as to have long been understood in Christian and Islamic lore as one of the seven deadly sins, leading to an eternity in hell. 

As Charles Bukowski wrote in “Lost” from his 1974 Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame, “those who escape hell, however, never talk about it and nothing much bothers them after that.” He wrote that going through hell and back is “the greatest satisfaction known to man.” This idea is also reflected in the archetype of the tree of life, where the roots of the tree descend down to hell and reach up to heaven. The path to the gates of salvation, as it is stated clearly in the Bible through Jesus’ death and resurrection, are met through hell.

Donald Trump is going to win. Of this, there is little doubt. His pride, which we may consider to be America’s collective pride, will send the nation to hell. Yet, at the end of this tortuous experience, is the opportunity to find a better and higher state through the symbolic death and rebirth of our collective psyche. How exactly this will play out is anyone’s guess.