by Erik Root
In August, Carl Benjamin, also known as Sargon of Akkad, posted a persuasive intellectual case for Donald Trump’s candidacy in which he said that “Trump is the protagonist of an important moral story whose narrative arc has yet to resolve. And resolve it must.”
This is not some historicist narrative that Trump must be our protagonist because history is forcing the people into some deterministic future. Rather, the people’s reflection and choice must register the definitive judgment whether our republic is going to be determined by the consent of the governed or whether we revert to politics of the dark ages—accident and force. There is only one person who stands in opposition to a ruling class that sneers at our country and the “peasants” who inhabit it. Only one person exhibits the greatness to oppose our self-anointed elites. In other words, there are none on the Republican stage who possess Trump’s je ne sais quoi.
In 2016, the people chose Trump to be the protagonist against a class of elites—Democrats and Republicans—who fleeced the country for their own benefit. In 2020, Trump set an electoral record by increasing his share of the vote. Yet, the job was left unfinished; his arc was interrupted. Whether you believe the election was legally fortified or outright stolen, it denied to a reasonable electorate the opportunity to recover a small slice of liberty for themselves while protecting their families from the purposeful attack on and disintegration of their honorable way of life.
The many objections to Trump’s first term are valid—all princes disappoint. It’s a reasonable concern that Trump may repeat his mistakes by falling for similar traps that the ruling class sets for him. There is evidence, however, that Trump has learned from these mistakes (he has said so privately and, in limited ways, publicly). Going forward, we can hope he will be wiser when traps are set for him, and in any case, they would be set for someone else just as easily. You might say that at least he now knows he needs to set traps for their traps.
The electoral objections to Trump are considerable: while he has the ability to turn out the MAGA base, he also turns out blue anons. But worrying about the Left’s motivated voters is shortsighted. The ability of the ruling class machine to turn out their voters is a given no matter who the nominee is for the simple fact they do not focus on turnout as much as ballots. Fetterman anyone? Legal or not, it is genius, and the practice all but guarantees Democrat victory. The ruling class machine has figured out a way not only to engage in sectional campaigns but also to rig the Electoral College.
Trump, for his part, spent most of his time during midterm rallies speaking of the injustice of the 2020 election without offering an alternative. He rectified this in his announcement at Mar-a-Lago on November 15. People need more than a revenge candidacy. While the control of the vote must be wrested from the cabal, Trump offers a path forward. He contends we need not only paper ballots but same-day vote counts without machines and their proprietary operating systems. It is tricky how he will bring this about since voting is a matter of federalism. Perhaps in-person ballot dropping would work? Regardless, Trump recognizes the problem and therefore has to campaign for 2024 in the new mail/harvest reality, or he will lose. Further, as we saw with Arizona (thanks, John McCain!), same-day voters can easily be disenfranchised by “malfunctioning” machines. All of this is to say, Trump and MAGA cannot run the 2016 playbook—and Trump knows it.
We must do more than complain about past malfeasance. MAGA should make an affirmative case for why things should change. In 1880, Ulysses S. Grant faced similar problems. He gave at least two speeches on the issue of the vote that applies to our present situation:
That is all we ask . . . that our [fellow- citizens] of every other class who may choose to be Republicans, shall have the privilege to go to the polls, even though they are in the minority, and put in their ballot without being burned out of their homes, and without being threatened or intimidated. All we ask is that just the same privileges shall be granted to us that we grant to the Democrats. Then, when they can beat us under those circumstances, we shall believe that they have been so purified as to be fit to govern the country—until they’re turned out. The beauty of the system of free ballot is that if an Administration is not a good one the next will be of a different sort.
The ruling class hates the consent of the governed because it, and it alone, is the only peaceful political weapon to rein in despotic rule. In such a voting system that treats the voters equally, a case must be made why a party, or person, deserves the vote. Votes that are fortified can sidestep public arguments. This is why Democrats know they do not have to debate. The present electoral ballot system has encouraged their radical policies because they know they do not have to be held accountable. In this sense, the game is rigged. Every reasonable voter should be able to grasp the simple truth of free and fair elections as Trump and Grant made them. In this vein, Grant had this to say:
I believe the present occasion to be as important as any since 1865. The mission of the Republican party is not ended until a free ballot can be cast throughout this land without endangering the life, property or social position of the voter. Those who have labored to destroy this country should come to us—not we to them.
Grant and Trump are saying similar things. Like Grant, Trump realizes that the majority party of the ruling class, as Angelo Codevilla once put it, seeks to deny elections to the very people they despise. MAGA voters have endured threats to their jobs, their land, and their lives for their political beliefs. Trump offers a solution to the problem while not compromising on the very mechanism that guarantees we remain a republic. A republic cannot survive without some trust in elections.
According to a recent Rasmussen poll, Republicans are concerned most about cheating, while Democrats are concerned about making it easier to vote. As we saw this year, Republicans are being targeted to make voting arduous. Trump should make the case for both—they are not mutually exclusive positions. Repairing the ballot is a boon for the republic as a whole, not just the Republican Party.
The aim of MAGA going forward should be not to forget or move beyond past electoral injustices but rather to do something to fix the problem. Having a plan to correct the election shenanigans of the past is what the electorate needs to see. If a clear, targeted plan from the Trump team is conducted quietly (because McLeadership sure won’t do it), it will favorably fortify a path to securing the consent of all citizens. It replaces hopelessness about our present state of affairs with the belief we can win against the corporate globalists who wish to silence us.
None of this will be easy. Trump said in his announcement that we are all going to walk into the fire . . . together. The situation is dire because failure means no Republican that the ruling class does not choose will ever hold office again.
The Declaration notes that the people will suffer evils while they are sufferable and be slow to change the institutions to which they have become accustomed. Trump said at Mar-a-Lago:
Our victory will be built upon big ideas, bold ambitions and daring dreams for America’s future. We need daring dreams. It is not enough merely to complain or oppose. We don’t want to be critics. We don’t want to be complainers. I never wanted to be a critic. I never respected critics, they tell people what’s wrong, but they can’t do it themselves.
The people need to do this. As we see in Arizona, the objection to the election is coming from the grassroots. Trump expects something of all of us while our suffering is bearable. Then he had this to say about the 2022 election:
[T]he Republican Party should have done better. And frankly, much of this blame is correct. But the citizens of our country have not yet realized the full extent and gravity of the pain Our nation is going through. And the total effect of the suffering is just starting to take hold. They don’t quite feel it yet. But they will very soon. I have no doubt that by 2024, it will sadly be much worse. And they will see much more clearly what happened and what is happening to our country.
Many can see with their own eyes that the ruling class is doing everything it can to destroy our way of life. But it is also true that many have not felt the consequences. The elites of this country despise the people who compose it and they want to wreck our soul. Yet, it will take more time for low-information voters to feel the effects of this injustice. Trump is counseling patience. This is peak statesmanship.
Trump in 2016 was the one man who had the courage to stand up to the elites and do something about it. This is why he has a special connection to the voter that no other candidate has or can yet have. We are all in this together. In his words:
This will not be my campaign, this will be our campaign altogether. But just as I promised in 2016, I am your voice. I am your voice. The Washington establishment wants to silence us, but we will not let them do that. What we have built together over the past six years is the greatest movement in history because it is not about politics. It’s about our love for this great country, America, and we’re not going to let it fail. I am running because I believe the world has not yet seen the true glory of what this nation can be.
Trump’s moral arc is our own arc. The people have to finish what they started.
There are formidable obstacles for any Republican path to national victory. McLeadership, corporate and legacy “news,” NeverTrump financial interests, globalists, and normies will all be against him—now more than ever. Only Trump scares them like this because he is the one most capable of destroying their unearned position over us. It does not matter if you love or loathe Trump. It does not matter if you are simply tired of him. It remains an observable fact that the average American voter—the MAGA voter—is not going to abandon Trump, not even for another attractive candidate. The reason for this is because the people sense our moral arch has not concluded—they believe Trump is the best vehicle to bring the great question of whether this republic survives or dies to a close.
Win or lose, Trump is the only person who has a decent chance to break the obstacles facing the country. The people must have a decisive determination. Therefore, it must be Trump.
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Erik Root, Ph.D is a writer living in North Carolina.
Photo “Donald Trump” by Trump White House Archived.
