Hello Virginia Heffernan here. What you're about to hear is a teaser for today's episode of Trumpcast,

which is available in full for Slate Plus members only. See how tempted you are now to sign up for Slate Plus?

We've made one in four episodes exclusive to Slate Plus members because they help support the work we do on Trumpcast

and help fund other Slate podcasts like Slow Burn.

To sign up and hear this episode and every episode of Trumpcast in full, please visit Slate.com slash Trumpcast Plus.

It's only $35 for the first year and you'll get other benefits like ad free podcasts and discounted tickets to live Slate events.

So sign up now at Slate.com slash Trumpcast Plus and thanks for listening.

Hello and welcome to Trumpcast. I'm Virginia Heffernan. We'll Trumpism survive Trump.

Increasingly, I'm convinced it won't and not just because I don't want to have to boot up Trumpismcast.

But because I believe after more than four long years on this show, the Trump as president has been too disjointed and cacophonous

and really shocking to exist in a pervasive workday ideology.

Trump is sui generous. I mean, we've had racists on the American main stage before.

But not one who's been as much of a demagogue, as illiterate, as show boating, as corrupt and as cruel.

And not on the main stage that is the oval office for someone that has all that going against him.

And if we had someone like that, he wasn't unmoored ideologically, a depraved maniac calling himself a Christian,

who sometimes says he wants to arm everyone and other times wants to confiscate all guns.

We've not had someone who's a hawk and an isolationist in the same breath, who's still at heart a game show host,

who's rich and bankrupt at once, who advocates the use of intravenous bleach and looks right at a solar eclipse.

I don't want to keep going over to this. I just don't think rubio or cruise or Tom Cotton or Mike Pence

or even the author of the Turner Diaries or any far-right racist lunatic can pull off the set of anti-values,

esoterica, and heromskaren flailing that made Trump supporters swoon.

And when they voted, what were they voting for?

...