With powerful communication tools like hyperbole and misinformation, former President Donald Trump and his team have managed to create a compelling narrative about clear and present danger facing not just his supporters, but America as a whole. Trump, his lawyers, and conservative media opinion leaders have whittled down American's faith in democracy and its institutions to the stump. If Trump doesn't win the November election, they stand ready to burn its remaining roots to ashes. Not winning will be used as unassailable proof that the electoral system, indeed the entire government, needs not an overhaul, but an overthrow.
Why? Because forward thinking conservatives have analyzed the data. The demographics of America have shifted away from those that typically have supported them, and it's only going to get worse. To legitimately win the presidency, the GOP must ensure every possible conservative voter casts a ballot (as well as limiting the opportunities for those who'd vote Democrat). And the GOP is throwing bucketsful of tactics in hopes of achieving this—leaning hard on issues such as immigration, transgender rights, teaching critical race theory in schools, and freedom of speech at universities. Cultural issues that play to emotions over reason and ignore more traditional ballot box questions.
But the key here—these issues don't have to work at the ballot box. The issues only need to prove to Americans that if they want a conservative America, it can't be done within the status quo. Under the theme of common-good-constitutionalism (and its congenital twin, national conservatism), a moral rather than electoral foundation for governance is raising its long-hidden head.
In his book on the subject, Harvard's Adrian Vermeule writes "If [government] structures produce outcomes contrary to the common good, they will have to be dismantled," and this will be "difficult for the liberal mind to process." Notre Dame's Patrick Dineen, author of Regime Change, provides the strategy to achieve it: "Machiavellian means to achieve Aristotelian ends" (meaning, whatever it takes, including lies, misinformation, and using Trump's legal battles not as a stage for his dysfunction, but the dysfunction of the entire system).
The media is covering two long-term news stories as they normally would without considering that Trump has changed the rules. They are covering the machinations of his serial court cases as if they were judicial processes. They are covering the primary season as if this election year was any other. Like musicians on the Titanic, the media plays on as if nothing was out of the ordinary.
These are not ordinary judicial cases and candidate debates. They're only theater. The star of the show has made it clear that none of them have any credibility. He and his team have written, directed, and produced a narrative—with purpose—to distract and manipulate the thoughts of American voters who'd never in their lives believe they could ever collectively be responsible for voting autocracy into power.
The strategy of using lies to cast distrust on the political process and institutions that manage the welfare of the nation is the only possible path to victory. Hence Trump's increasing level of support with every legal defeat. Why? Because it raises the emotional stakes of conservative voters to ensure they get to the voting booth. A loss itself would be proof positive (for them) that democracy's day is done. Already, 25 percent of Americans believe that the FBI orchestrated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, including 34 percent of Republicans overall and 44 percent of those that voted for Trump.
It's a win-win strategy.
We've seen already that even if you don't win an election, losing creates a stage for false declarations of injustice. Trump and his allies will not relitigate the 2024 election (as they did post-2020). No, they will use it as proof that the whole system must come down.
In 2025, win or lose, that process will begin. The only question: can American institutions survive the assault, especially if this coordinated attack on their reputations is left undefended. At a minimum, the media must give this larger more dangerous story as much attention as it does the decisions of black-robed judges and the bunting of political theater.
Ted Griffith is a communications expert and author of Theater of Lies.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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