Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention (RNC) at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, July 15, 2024.
Cheney Orr/Reuters
The outrage engendered by his casual racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and threats of violence is like food for these people. “F–k your feelings,” is their battle cry. Does that mean his supporters actually lack empathy? I don’t think so. Talk to them one-on-one and they’re, generally, fine folks. What they share is a sense of victimization and aggrievement ginned up by the same media they turn to for solutions. Enter Donald Trump promising that he alone can fix it while, at the same time, doing everything in his power to fuel those feelings of victimization and aggrievement.
It’s brilliant.
The result is obvious. Mistrust. Paranoia. Americans scratching at the open wounds of our own history. Americans seeking the Red Bull rush that comes from scapegoating those most likely to be actual victims of a system that traditionally has historically insulated the rich and white and powerful and which, despite their fears, continues to do so. Donald Trump certainly didn’t invent scapegoating, but he’s been its most successful propagator since Joseph McCarthy. Has anybody in our history been better at turning Americans against ourselves for the purpose of personal enrichment? None come to mind.
There’s a month left. A month until we can be rid of Donald Trump as the most potent political force in the nation. A month until we at least have the opportunity to turn the page on this profoundly ugly chapter of our history. I don’t think the MAGA movement goes away when Trump finally, mercifully, rides that golden escalator to his penthouse in the sky, but I think we at least have a chance of stitching together something like an uneasy truce.
In time that truce can be built upon. But the old rules are gone. Trump obliterated them. He resurrected American nativism at its ugliest, spawning an army of cretins, blowhards, grifters, and—most ominously—students. Regardless of how this election ends, we will be dealing with the Trump effect for decades to come. He deserves his place in history.
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Publish date : 2024-10-08 23:42:00
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