Progressive Politics Can Probably Survive 4 Years of Trump. It Might Not Be Able to Survive 8.

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Six weeks of semi-vacation from Donald Trump was nice, but jumping back into the cesspool is…bracing. Unlike a lot of people, though, I don’t have Trump fatigue. I’m not sure exactly what I do have, but it’s bigger than Trump. It’s more like a slow but steady rise in my unease about the future of my country. Is Trump going to turn out to be a blip, with the ship righted and returning to course in 2020? Or is Trump a harbinger of things to come?

I used to be pretty sure it was the former, but I’m less sure now. The ability of Trump to tweet out his version of alternate reality and have it accepted without question by his base is increasingly scary. It’s obvious that he doesn’t care if all the rest of us know it’s nonsense. It’s not meant for us. And no matter how crazy it gets, Fox News is willing to amplify it; congressonal Republicans are willing to ignore it; and his true-believer core laps it up. If that core is enough to power Trump to a reelection win in 2020, we’re in serious trouble even if he doesn’t start a nuclear war or destroy the rule of law.

Roberto Parada

The reason has to do with one of my other hobbyhorses: artificial intelligence. Economic anxiety among the working class was an important, but still small, part of last year’s election, but it’s likely to start growing in the mid-2020s thanks to the first glimmerings of the AI revolution. And 20th-century history is pretty clear that it’s misguided to ask whether Trump’s victory was really spurred by economic anxiety or racial anxiety. They’re a package deal. The response to widespread job losses nearly always includes a big dose of scapegoating: Jews, Ukranians, Poles, Mexicans, blacks, Catholics, you name it.

What this means is simple: If we can dump Trump in 2020 and prick the fever, we at least have a chance of dealing in a reasonable way with our forthcoming era of mass unemployment. If Trump makes it to 2024, I’d say all bets are off. A future of toxic, right-wing, nationalist-inflected populism becomes our most likely future. This means that 2018 and 2020 are, perhaps, going to be our most consequential elections since at least 1980. Maybe since 1932.

I wish I were able to be a little uplifting about all this, but I think this is just the bare truth. Progressive politics can probably survive four years of Trump. But given the march of technology, I’m not sure it will survive eight.

This was supposed to be a fundraising post, and I think something a little brighter and more hopeful was probably what our marketing folks had in mind. But that’s not really where I am these days. There’s a pretty good chance that I won’t be around by 2020, so this doesn’t affect me personally much. But it affects everyone I care about—which, believe it or not, includes everyone reading these words. You guys really, really deserve a better future than Trump can provide.

But we have to fight for it. And I hardly need to add that Mother Jones is one of the most important media outlets helping to fight for that future. If you can get into the fight personally, that’s what you should do. But if you can’t, for whatever reason, at least contribute to those who can. This is a fight that needs to be intense, relentless—and well funded.

Click here to donate via PayPal or credit card. A one-time contribution is great. A monthly contribution is even better.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate