On the savior once again – Douthat in NYT:

‘The six days that carried Donald Trump from the stage in Butler, Pa., to the rostrum at the Republican National Convention seemed at times like the buildup to a moment of total political domination, an apotheosis for the Republican nominee and confusion and defeat for his opponents.
The hairbreadth survival of the attempted assassination. The image of Trump rising, alive and fighting and undaunted, under the red, white and blue. The cohesive and enthusiastic Republican convention that followed, complete with the anointing of a youthful vice president and heir apparent, all in contrast to the spectacle of a Democratic Party trying desperately to jettison its senescent standard-bearer. The promises of a conciliatory and unifying acceptance speech, finally delivering the “presidential” Trump that Republicans have strained to see these last eight years.
For the first nearly 20 minutes of the speech, as Trump walked the audience through the experience of surviving an assassin’s bullet, the apotheosis seemed to be on track. It was, of course, a strange and digressive narrative — the disquisition on the blood vessels in the human ear, for instance — but it was transfixing television, Trump the showman transmuting his own mortality into tremendous content. Who could stand against this? Not Joe Biden, surely; not Kamala Harris, either.’

(…)

‘I agree with Bill Kristol, no great Trump apologist, that Trump “came across as more self-indulgent than scary, more boring than terrifying, more undisciplined than dangerous.”’

(…)

‘But so long as he remains the central figure in our national drama, neither would-be successors nor policy wonks nor tech billionaires can hope to steer Trumpism into some safe harbor, or achieve some stable new consensus, some clear successor to the neoliberal order that Trump himself helped shatter.’

Read the article here.

More boring than terrifying – absolutely.But some of the great Hollywood blockbusters – not all of them – were more bring than terrifying.

Also, what do we mean by neoliberal order? Did it start with Reagan and Thatcher? Or with the Marshall plan?

Is there such a thing as neoliberal order?

Is Trump against it? Really?

I’m not sure that the electorate wants more equality, let's say some progressive politics with some sexy nationalism attached to it.

They want a better scapegoat, a sexy scapegoat maybe.