It occurs to me that the result of the election will not be
the thing that determines the fate of the GOP and conservatism – if Trump wins
[given the polls a virtual impossibility at this point] Trumpism and its many
apologists will be validated, vindicated, the GOP will be forever changed
accordingly and conservatism will either vanish or need reinventing under the
banner of a new party – if he loses those same apologists and the bulk of
Trump’s followers will spawn conspiracy theories, spew copious venom at the
evil Republican establishment and then scurry after Trump to whatever media
‘empire’ he’s planning on building, meaning many of those people will likely
never vote GOP again, meaning the GOP will no longer be a viable national
party, meaning conservatism will need to be reinvented under a different
banner.
When it comes to just how screwed the GOP and conservatism
are, the result of the election is not the thing that matters – what matters
are the debates. If Hillary reduces Trump to a smoldering pile of ashes on the
stage, thoroughly embarrasses him, thoroughly exposes him as a man utterly
unfit and unprepared for the Oval Office, then the Trumpkins will not be able
to blame his loss in the election on conspiracy theories and the perfidious
establishment – the clear reason for the loss will have leapt off TV screens in
millions of homes across the country: not qualified to serve. Conversely, if
Trump manages to crawl over the lowest of bars when it comes to questions of
‘competence’ or if Hillary stumbles and fails to deliver, then you’re back to
the two inevitabilities stated above.
I know what you’re thinking: poor debate performance didn’t
hurt him in the primaries. Two big differences here: nothing hurt him in the primaries because of an unshakeable
plurality of Koolaid drinkers who couldn’t have cared less if he sounded
presidential – in the upcoming debates those Koolaid drinkers will be dwarfed
by the number of people tuning in for the explicit
purpose of seeing if Trump can pull off sounding half way presidential; more
problematic for Trump is fact there’ll be nowhere to hide on that stage – he
will not be able escape Hillary’s attacks by tossing off insults or diverting
attention to someone else nor will he be able to fake his way through tough
questions with incoherent non-answers laced with slogans and empty rhetoric,
babbling on until some kindly moderator steps in to save him – Sean Hannity
won’t be there to finish his word salad sentences for him. Put another way,
people tuned in to the republican debates to see a Trump performance – people will be tuning in to the presidential
debates to see a presidential
performance. If Trump can’t pull it off it will be obvious to everyone.
In an ironical twist so absurd it challenges belief, the
fate of conservatism in America may be reduced to depending on the debating
skills of the great pant-suited one, the corrupt and cankled doyen of our
fallen democracy. God help us all.