Don’t count Trump — and Trumpism — out quite yet

Is Trump in the rear-view mirror?

It depends on what vehicle you are driving.

Late Saturday evening, as Nevada’s Democratic incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto won reelection and it became clear that the Democrats would hold onto control of the Senate even if they fail to win the run-off between Raphael Warnock (D) and Hershel Walker (R) in Georgia, the Democrats’ triumph was less striking than the disarray among Republicans, who had anticipated a “red tsunami.”

Commenting on the self-appointed kingmaker role of the former president, the National Review’s editor in chief noted that Trump had “picked the candidates who lost. He helped make himself an issue. He changed what should have been a pure referendum on Joe Biden into what was more of a choice between Biden and a Trumpified Republican Party that couldn’t make itself palatable enough to suburbanites and independents.”

Comparing the former president to the new GOP frontrunner, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, in a post-election interview with the BBC, Republican pollster and strategist Patrick Ruffini described Trump as a “wounded animal.”

Before we think Trump is finally a thing of the past, we need to remember that he has been counted down and out before.

Also, although Trump was responsible for some of the most unfortunate Republican candidates, many of the shrillest were self-promoted.

And finally, with the Jan. 6 insurrection less than two years past, we should never forget that Trumpism has never been just an electoral movement: Its deepest danger has been the fact many in the MAGA movement see it as the fighting force for a mobilized insurgency of the radical right.

True, some elements in the MAGA insurgency owe their origins to the Trumpian electoral movement, but many others precede it and are attributable to the former president’s uncanny capacity to attract elements that escape traditional electoral geography.

Consider the organizational affiliations of the members of the MAGA movement collected by researchers Rachel Blum and Christopher Sebastian Parker. Most of the animating causes predate Trump’s electoral venture, ranging from the pro-gun movement to pro-life, “Tea Party” and militia groups.

Electorally, Trump may be done, but Trumpism likely isn’t.

As the man diminishes in the rear-view mirror of American politics, it behooves us to recall what his avatars showed us on and after Jan. 6, 2021: Trumpism is at its most dangerous when its electoral arm gives way to its more militant members.

Sidney Tarrow is Emeritus Professor of Government at Cornell University and an adjunct professor at the Cornell Law School. His most recent book is “Movements and Parties: Critical Connections in American Political Development,” from Cambridge University Press.