It was one year ago today that Donald Trump rode down an escalator and unfooted the entire American political order. Much of what he did to that order is extremely lamentable: He has obliterated standards of acceptable political discourse; incited violence; legitimized the use of the vilest smears as mere parts of the game; and tacitly encouraged bigots and haters to be bolder, less furtive, in spewing their bile.
But other things Trump has done would, or at least could, be seen as salutary if they had not been accompanied by the smears, the mainstreaming of conspiracy nuttery, and the other extreme violations of any sense of decorum. The most important of these achievements of Trump is his success in finally busting the elites upside the head with the message many of us have tried, without success, to argue for years — namely, that American laborers have been too often ignored, their concerns belittled or trampled, and their sometimes-justifiable anger at “the system” too readily dismissed. For years some of us have argued that a vast number of people that roughly fit the description of “1992 Perot voters” had been treated as if they were voiceless, and that they needed to be romanced into the Republican/conservative coalition. We’ve also openly criticized the Republican National Committee and its slavishness to the “donor class” while creating rules meant to advantage insiders, and we’ve called for a greater sense of populism (although nothing like demagoguery) in the Republican/conservative ethos.
Trump drove home those lessons with the force of a huge, over-amped electric sledgehammer. He also proved to the naysayers that he personally should be taken seriously as a political force; that political messages can be transmitted without the usual filters; that much of what passes for conventional wisdom is bunk; and that the political consultant class vastly overrates its own abilities. In doing so, Trump made himself (somewhat ironically, considering his inherited wealth) as a Goliath-size tribune of the “people” — an agitator for the (supposed) interests of the “Ordinary Joe,” even though Trump has spent an entire careermistreating such people.
But now Trump has made his point — or, rather, his multiple points. In doing so, though, he has gone over the top and in the past few weeks begun to descend into self-parody. With a 70 percent disapproval rating nationally, he absolutely cannot win the presidency unless, in the final three weeks of the campaign, his Democratic opponent is arrested or has a major health setback. He is now generally assumed to be a bigot, a loony conspiracy theorist, and a bit unstable. His poll numbers are dropping, and not likely to reverse themselves any time soon.
Donald Trump has a choice: He can keep campaigning and prove he’s a loser by going down in a landslide — or he can get out while the getting is good. If Trump withdraws now, by his own decision, he can always say he was the presumptive GOP nominee but was “too good for the party.” He can say he beat the party pooh-bahs at their own games. He can justly say he shook up a system that needed shaking; that he re-energized some beneficial populism in the body politic; that he rocked Washington on its heels and made it take notice — and that he, the Great Donald Trump, merits a place at the political table as one of only a tiny handful of key kingmakers whose ring must be kissed and imprimatur sought for access to the lasting passions of as much of a quarter or even a third of the American electorate.
Trump, in his own heart, must know that he isn’t meant for the strictures of the presidency. He would soon feel hemmed in, hamstrung, overburdened with details of things beyond his interest, forced to live for others and to meet others’ expectations rather than setting his own. If even Dwight Eisenhower, so adept at the exercise of power, often found himself frustrated by the give-and-take of governing in a constitutional republic, imagine how a lifelong free agent like Trump would chafe when he realizes that a American president cannot just dictate policy and directives and have them be carried out at will.
If Trump leaves the campaign now, he still exits as a colossus. If he remains and loses ignominiously, as is likely — or, lord forbid (from my standpoint), if he wins and then finds the presidency a nightmare — then his legacy, in the history books, will be that of an Icarus who flew way too close to the sun. And while he does so, he’ll continue to see, day after day after day, the criticism of people like me calling him a bigot, a demagogue, an ignoramus, a con man, a habitual prevaricator and, in general, the worst human being imaginable.
For the reasons described above, Donald Trump’s greatest beneficial effect on his country will come if he exits the campaign stage while leaving behind a system newly open to reform and revitalization.
For his own good and that of his country, Trump should use the anniversary of his candidacy announcement to withdraw from the race.
Leave now, Mr. Trump, while you are still a leviathan, rather than a latter-day Ozymandias. Please, vamoose.
Donald Trump's 2016 Campaign Anniversary Should be Its Last Day