A Japanese castle doesn't look at all like one of those haunted Scottish castles, nor yet like that swooning mad-king affair in Bavaria. Seen from ground level, it may strike you as a cross between a pyramid and a pagoda.
From above, you can tell that this effect is due to its having been designed, not as an edifice, but as a huge compound with concentric stages of fortification, each looming above the one before it and fronted by a roofed wall. The first line of defense was an outer moat immediately overlooked by the sannomaru or third ring of fortification, counting out from the center. Farther in, attackers would face the second ring and then an inner moat overlooked by the main ring. In the center of all this stood the keep, where a besieged lord of the domain would do whatever seemed important in the days before Twitter.
President Donald Trump's political defenses happen to take the same form. The outermost ring consists of dispirited Americans who thought they had nothing to lose by taking a flutter on a fleabag in the late presidential race. This ring will disintegrate first and seems to be in the process already. Here are people losing heart they didn't know they had as they watch their champion go from marveling that health care could be so complicated to slashing various programs they need, to digging the ground from under his own feet in search of new and bigger lies. Some of these people, the ones represented by the water in the moat, will quietly evaporate and re-condense at a safe distance from Castle Trump. Meeting them for the first time, you won't know they ever supported such a dolt. Others will manfully or womanfully admit that they made a bad choice. They can't be expected to remember what possessed them to make it, but let us hope they don't say, "Nobody knew that seeing through Donald Trump could be so complicated."
Once the outermost ring has fallen, Trumpist Republicanism is doomed, with or without Trump himself. The votes won't be there. America may get more demagogues, but their hopes will lie in running against the compromised Republican brand.
It's only a matter of time, then, till the second ring falls in its turn. Here we have an assortment of long-haul Republicans and fellow travelers: cynical but plausible politicians and party hacks joined by individual Americans who look to get rich or richer through Republican control of government. With Trumpism recognized as a fluke, these people will no longer tolerate the president's heresies and will probably use their congressional committee chairs to appear in the forefront of opposition to his misdeeds. It may not be possible for them to rehabilitate their brand in time for the mid-term elections or the next presidential election, but they'll start trying in short order. To know when Trump's second ring of fortification disintegrates, you'll need to be listening for a crisp snap.
That brings us to the one ring that will hold forever though it becomes a forgotten island. You'll recall that the Japanese-castle model includes an inner moat -- just the thing for last-ditch efforts. Within this is the main ring (honmaru) containing the castle keep, above and beyond which there is nowhere to go. Here, bitter-enders will hole up with their hero. The more privileged among them will shelter in the keep while the red-capped legions huddle on the ground in all weather, full willing to eat their hats literally but never figuratively. No doubt these legions will still be there after the occupants of the keep have taken the money and run. It's like this:
The 1970s American TV series Project UFO dramatized actual US Air Force investigations of UFO-related cases. In one, a woman reports that her husband has invested all their savings in a dubious company that claims to be developing a flying saucer. The investigators expose the scam. They show the couple that the prototype "flying saucer" is only a hollow prop once used in a movie. They even get the people’s money back. The wife thanks them, but the husband becomes furious -- saying the investigators have kept him from getting rich and traveling in outer space!
Foolish pride springs eternal in the human breast. So does bigotry awaiting its night to howl. So, since the twentieth century, does the dream of sitting in a television studio audience and paying court to a king of glitz, maybe even getting pointed at by the smirking despot as he makes his entrance. To leave when the show was over would be to leave behind the camaraderie of the dazzled and return to bleak square one. For all these reasons the smallest and bitterest of the bitter-enders will stay on, and Castle Trump will settle down to being a mad-king affair without the king.
