To sum up the current situation, the U.S. is experiencing a fake self-coup that requires the administration to do exactly the things a regime would do if it were attempting to stage an actual self-coup, with millions of people sincerely believing the stated justifications for the strongman’s consolidation of power and with the regime’s legislative allies playing along, under the apparent belief that eventually the courts, which are stocked with unqualified loyalists, will soon say the game is done.
No one who might be able to break the spell of Trump seems willing to rip off the Band-Aid. Many conservatives are probably worried that a wounded Trump might use a dolchstoss story to popularize some alternative to the institutional conservative movement and its house organ, Fox News. (There are anecdotal reports already of angry MAGA heads jumping ship from Fox News, where reality now sometimes interrupts fantasy, for One America News, where the world is still presented as Trump would like it to be.) Perhaps, in their nightmares, it culminates in some Bull Moose–style 2024 presidential run that decimates the entire Republican Party.
So, out of self-preservation, they will maintain the strange kayfabe that has characterized this era until the very end. But playing along with an authoritarian power grab because you don’t expect it to work is still playing along with an authoritarian power grab. Trump’s Republican smarts believe they shouldn’t be held responsible for it because, like wrestling, none of it is real. For once, the marks are closer to the truth
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