Under What Circumstances?

Under what circumstances does Trump's destruction of the country make sense? It makes sense if it's the culmination of a Republican movement that was already in place. It makes sense if the two parts of the Republican coalition, rich, laissez-faire capitalists and disaffected, mostly evangelical white southerners, both want it. It makes sense by having happened. 

Both those groups want to see the country destroyed in some way. Evangelicals wanted crazily restrictive social changes. Outlaw abortion. Racist everything dressed for deniability. Rampant privatization. Their hopes and expectations changed as their grievances were validated over the years. They were fed vague promises that their revanchist dreams would be fulfilled. 

Rich, laissez-faire capitalists had been using them for their votes and stoking their anger but not giving them the crazy shit. They began to take it. Then the big change. The rich began to warm to the apocalyptic crowd. Not the crowd, really. They didn't want rednecks, Proud Boys and bikers showing up at their houses for cocktails, but there was 'disaster capitalism.'

'Creative destruction' was floating around in their realm of opportunistic, money-making ideas. And they want more money. 

They warmed up to catastrophism on the heels of the Great Recession they created and came out of not only unscathed but generally enriched. Enter Trump, an amazing criminal who had to have complete separation from any context of accountability. The average super-rich person might have wanted that, nobody telling them what to do or even making them pay taxes.

Way beyond it, they ended up part of a criminal enterprise to subvert the legal authority and power of the U.S. government. Maybe passively. Average, highly affluent people I'm talking about here. We now have a unified political movement that has seized control of everything solely for purposes of destruction. They had been selectively changing laws in their favor. 

It became impossible to hold them accountable even when they did, sometimes flagrantly, violate the law. Instances come to mind. Democrats fought back with pool noodles. They have tried, and I'll grant it's hard to fight sociopaths, but when you keep getting beat and the system is failing and people are dying at some point you have to question your tactics. But, no. 

Identity politics, the same old shit. Which I support as necessary to a degree as a matter of policy, but if you keep losing leading with it as a political thing YOU FUCKING STOP. Win the election, enact the policies. Where are we now? We are fucked. We have lost to an unbelievable degree. And we had better get our heads out of our asses. The other side is playing to win at any cost.

They want the government functionally obliterated. To go to heaven or to stay out of jail. Some for both.