Trump and the Masses

Here’s another reminder of the “chicken-and-the-egg” question that we face in our attempt to understand contemporary American politics. Did American hatred and ignorance cause Trump, or was it the other way around?

In any case, we have a country in which about one-third of its people believe that woke liberals hate America and are trying to destroy it.

Note that this is much different than the way the Republican party characterized progressives just a few short years ago.   Until Trump, the GOP would say that liberals were ill-informed bleeding hearts, hoping to create a utopian society built on impractical ideas.

Now, we’re evil.  Quite a switch indeed.

Since the beginning, Trump has counted on the idea that a huge swath of the American electorate would believe anything he said.  And, for a long while, it appeared that this “swath” was large enough to keep him in power and immune from criminal prosecution.

Now it appears that this notion is simply wrong. Thank God.