Did Trump Create This Madness, or Did Our Madness Propel Him to Power?

It’s unclear where reader Hayley Nuttall hails from, but she writes about the tragedy described in the meme here:  This is your new reality America. This is what Trump has created. He encouraged the protesters. Convinced people this is a Democratic hoax. Promoted disregard for truth, science, facts, the media and authority.

Well, Hayley, there is a question that has been batted around ever since it became obvious to most of the world that Donald Trump was mentally unstable, and that this instability was going to do great damage before it was brought under control:  Did he create this madness, or did our own madness, hidden just beneath the surface, create him as our leader?  I wish I had a dollar for every book and PhD dissertation that will be written on this subject over the coming decades.

There is no doubt that he would have become nothing other than the butt of jokes had he not encountered the “perfect storm” in terms of decay of the educational system, white resentment that a black man had just served two terms and was admired and respected by most Americans, white frustration with the economic morass that left them unable to make progress in their financial lives, as well as looking for a scapegoat and finding one in the “swamp” that Trump promised to drain.

In any case, this incident is a tragedy, and it’s a microcosm of the much larger tragedy that our America has become.