Après-moi

 For the last several days, Trump has been pressuring Senate Republicans to do away with the filibuster. In response, they have raised all the obvious objections to this plan from a GOP perspective: Democrats will eventually come to power again. Without the filibuster, they would be free to enact a far-reaching agenda. They might even use simple majority votes to enact DC statehood and thereby secure a permanent legislative majority in the chamber, etc. 

Trump's response to this was revealing. He said—in essence—that Republicans just need to use their post-filibuster powers to change so many election rules, before the midterms, that Democrats will never be able to win an election again. 

I'm not exaggerating. This is what he said! The Wall Street Journal quotes him as follows: "If we do what I’m saying…they’ll most likely never attain power, because we will have passed every single thing that you can imagine."

Yes, that's right. Trump is saying openly that he envisions permanent single-party rule. And he thinks he has the roadmap to get there through changing voting procedures. (Notice that he does not say that Republicans will govern forever under this scenario because their policies will be so popular with American voters; but rather, because they will reshape the rules of the game so that no one can ever dislodge them.)

It's rather disturbing, of course, that Trump brags so openly about his authoritarian ambitions—but, I do take some comfort from the fact that the means he proposes to enact them would not actually be as effective as he claims. 

Trump proposes to eliminate mail-in voting and impose nationwide voter ID laws, for instance. And while one may well oppose these policies on principled grounds—the evidence is not actually strong that they would dampen Democratic turnout in the Trump era. 

Trump can't actually believe, then, that one filibuster-proof GOP congressional term would be enough to cement the permanent rule of his own party, no matter how unpopular they become—merely because they can tinker with election laws. So, I think what he really means—translated—is that he just doesn't care what happens after his own presidency. 

Senate Republicans have to look to the future of their own party. They have to consider what happens to the GOP after Trump is no longer in the White House. But why should Trump care? These considerations don't apply to him. So he says: Après-moi, le deluge. 

But as D.H. Lawrence once said—to all those who invoke this famous phrase: "Why should the deluge wait while these young gentry go on eating good dinners for fifty more long years?" Why, he asks, do they "calmly expect / that the deluge will never be turned on them, only after them[?]"

Indeed—as Tuesday's election results indicate—we may well say the same of Trump. He obviously doesn't care what happens to his own party once he is no longer in office. But—perhaps he should start to worry about what happens to it while he is still in office. 

Democrats won across the board earlier this week. People are evidently not happy with the policies of this administration, and for good reason. I have no doubt they will continue to make their feelings known at the ballot box next November too. 

As Lawrence concluded: "If you are expecting a Second Advent in the shape of a deluge / you mustn't expect it also to wait for your convenience."