Friends,

Some say if he loses, that’s the end of Trump.

Wrong.

We’ve been through this before. When Trump lost in 2020, most Republican insiders thought he’d be toast after January 6.

Yet here we are, 55 days to Election Day 2024, and Trump is virtually tied with Kamala Harris.

Tonight’s debate could make a difference, but don’t count on it.

(By the way, Heather and I will be hosting a watch-along here on this Substack, starting at 5:45 pm PT, 8:45 pm ET, and every time zone in between.)

The Republican Party is more MAGA now than it was in 2020. More congressional Republicans are election deniers than they were in 2020.

If Trump loses by a small margin, he’ll almost certainly contest the outcome once again.

At least this time Trump is not the incumbent president. He won’t be sitting in the Oval Office receiving recommendations from his staff to send in the military to seize voting machines and “rerun” the election, as happened in December 2020.

He won’t have power to pardon anyone and won’t be able to claim presidential immunity. And instead of Trump’s vice president presiding over the counting of Electoral College votes on January 6, 2025, this time it will be Vice President Kamala Harris.

But I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump and his lapdogs created post-election chaos at the precinct, county, and state levels, where votes are counted and the results certified. Trump loyalists in key districts will almost certainly try to manipulate the process and withhold certification.

I expect the federal courts will become involved. Some of this litigation may make its way to the Supreme Court. Raise your hand if you trust the current Supreme Court to rule impartially.

Even if Trump loses these battles, there’s nothing to keep him from meddling in 2026, or even running again in 2028, when he’d be 82.

I’ve heard from a few Never-Trump Republicans that they hope he wins in November so he can serve his final term now, and then disappear for good. But he won’t disappear. Trumpism will live on, regardless.

But if he loses in November, he’s very likely to do some time in prison — in a special wing of a prison in New York state or a federal prison secured by the Secret Service. This will slow him down but also make him a martyr in the eyes of his loyalists.

***

If Trump loses in 2024 and is unable to run again due to physical or psychological decline — or a prison sentence — JD Vance will be his heir apparent for 2028.

In the short time Vance has been a vice presidential candidate, he’s shown himself just as bigoted and unconstrained by facts as Trump.

Trump sons Donald Jr. and Eric will also continue to fire up the Trump base. Fox News, Newsmax, and other right-wing outlets will continue to distort the truth. Trump’s billionaire backers such as Peter Thiel and Elon Musk will continue to finance Trumpism’s shambolic politics.

I doubt a majority of Americans will support Trumpism after Trump, but Trump’s base will continue to be a significant force in America. They have remained remarkably loyal and resilient for eight years — consistently 42 to 44 percent of American voters.

If Trump loses, some proportion of them may turn to violence. Even a relatively small portion could threaten social stability.

Apart from the immediate aftereffects of a Trump loss, many of his followers will remain wedded to the isolationism, xenophobia, racism, and misogyny he has stirred up.

Why? Because they’re angry. They distrust the system. They feel disrespected by the “coastal elites” who appear to run it. And they’re stuck, economically.

They are mostly white men without college degrees, many without even high school degrees — men who used to have good manufacturing jobs but who are now working for low pay in jobs they consider women’s work.

They are ready to follow the next Trump, even if he disdains democracy, even if — and partly because — he’s an authoritarian strongman.

Trumpism will remain after Trump because it’s rooted in changes in the structure of the economy over the last 40 years.

Consider that, in 1979, a man with a college education earned about 60 percent more per week than someone who had dropped out of high school. By 2016, the “college-wage premium” was 170 percent (see chart, below).

The Biden-Harris administration has poured hundreds of billions of dollars into job-creation efforts in the Rust Belt and beyond — into semiconductors, “green” sources of energy, electric vehicles, and the supply chains they require.

Partly as a result, wage growth among poorer Americans has been outpacing wage growth of richer Americans. A man without a high-school degree who is in full-time work now earns an average of about $40,000 per year.

Labor-force participation is near an all-time high. In 2022 and 2023, just 5.1 percent of men without a high-school education were jobless — among the lowest rates of unemployment among those with no high school degree since records on this began in the early 1990s.

This good news isn’t due to permanent changes in the structure of the economy, however. It’s because the labor market has been unusually tight, which has increased the demand for all workers, including those with limited education.

Yet the labor market has loosened since the Fed went to war against inflation and hoisted interest rates, reducing the demand for less-educated workers.

In fact, the share of Americans employed in manufacturing has fallen since 2016 (see chart, above), and the wages in America’s manufacturing sector have fallen relative to the overall average.

Corporations have continued to substitute software for jobs that were once available to people with poor qualifications. Artificial Intelligence will hasten this trend. If jobs can’t be done by software, corporations are outsourcing them to countries where wages are lower.

Wall Street is demanding ever-higher share values, fueled by ever-higher profits and bigger stock buybacks. CEOs — whose generous compensation packages are tied to share values — are happy to oblige.

Even new manufacturing jobs are going to those with more education. Since 2016, the number of male PhDs working in American manufacturing has risen by over 50 percent. Manufacturing today is more about coding computers and maintaining complex equipment than about assembling pieces of metal.

***

Stopping Trumpism and its politics of resentment will take far more than a revival of traditional manufacturing. It will require wholesale changes in the structure of the American economy.

At the least, it will necessitate raising taxes on the wealthy to pay for better education of all young people, starting with early childhood; controlling the appetite of Wall Street for ever-higher stock market returns; attacking monopolies; strengthening labor unions; running a tight labor market; and getting good, higher-paying jobs to areas of the country that have been effectively abandoned.

It will also require getting big money out of American politics so large corporations and the wealthy can’t bribe their way to high profits based on low wages.

All of this will take time and political will.

Hence, even if Trump is defeated in November, the dark shadow of Trumpism may remain for years.

Which is no reason not to do everything in our power to keep Trump out of power now.

Rather, it’s a reason to be patient and keep fighting even if Kamala Harris wins.