I’ve been thinking for a week about Andrew Sullivan’s contention that
But this complexity misses something important — the contingent importance of individuals in human history. And the truth is: we would not be where we are now without Donald Trump, and Donald Trump alone. He is unique in American history, a president who told us in advance he would never accept any election result that showed him losing, and then proved it. He tried to overturn the transfer of power to his successor by threats and violence. No president in history has ever done such a thing — betrayed and violated the core of our republic — from Washington’s extraordinary example onwards. The stain of Trump is as unique as it is indelible.
Without wishing to mitigate the guilt of the former President, I must point out that it takes two to tango, that without a receptive audience the former President, well, he’d just be Donald J. Trump, strongly disliked by most of his hometown of Manhattan, and probably known as a screaming nincompoop.
In other words, the training of the conservative base to accept the baseless contentions of the former President, from Crime is at a terrible peak! to All the elections I lose are rigged! to Migrant caravans of rapists!, the willingness to swallow such ludicrous claims without limit, it’s all an indictment of a civil society that failed to properly bring these people to political maturity, and thus an indictment of that segment of society vulnerable to these depredations.
Before someone mutters Your political maturity may be my political brainwashing, a position I understand and respect, I believe that such a position cannot be maintained in the face of the spectacle, the avalanche of evidence illustrating the absolute credulousness of this segment, from sources such as the televised hearings of the January 6th panel to the egregious behavior of many state GOP parties, such as my neighboring State’s, the exceptionally clownish and embarrassing Wisconsin GOP. We can list everything from the endless grifting, much like H. Ross Perot’s Endless sucking noise, but into the wallets of the deeply dishonest Donald “No, there’s no Election Defense Fund” Trump and his allies, the lies, all the way to Every Single Believer in the Prophetic Movement.
These are the American citizens who’ve abandoned common sense, who’ve harassed anyone who stood in their path to power, and have forgotten what brought them freedom and prosperity: democracy.
And they, moreso than Donald J. Trump, are the biggest threats to the United States of America, because without dynamite, the match to the fuse is nothing more than some amusing sparks.
