We need to take up the challenge of understanding why Trump’s assault on the reality principle was so effective and so appealing to so many. Trump not only violated political norms, institutions, science, facts, and trust but was rewarded for doing so by the Republican leadership and by more than 72 million American voters. The idea that Biden could simply “make America a democracy again” is itself a fantasy that invests in some of the very same myths about American political life that Trump exploited for his own populist, racist, and fascist ends. The possibility of “life after Trump” would need to be an actual reckoning with the painful realities that face us (climate change, the enduring legacy of slavery, the carceral system, poverty) rather than a nostalgic wishful hope that we can simply return to the way things supposedly were “before.” Joe Biden won the election not by being Biden but by not being Trump.

The Trump era has taken us dramatically and I suspect irrevocably Beyond the Reality Principle. I think it would be a real mistake to imagine that we are now entering “life after Trump.” Although Trump’s presidency did rupture something in American life by ushering in a scary new day for American fascism, the roots of Trumpism took hold long before Trump took office, and the impact of the Trump-effect is far from over.

Reality principle