Lenin famously said that the capitalists, out of self-interest, would sell the Bolsheviks the rope with which the Bolsheviks would later hang them. The Far right political class exceeded Lenin’s expectations: Trump’s enablers wove the rope of lawlessness, tied the noose, and hanged America.
His enablers included not only the far right extremists American political class but also extremely wealthy people (including the world’s richest person), and, most importantly, 77 million American voters.
The last time a nation whose weight in world affairs reached far beyond its borders fell for a hatred-spewing demagogue, it took 12 years and 70 million dead before the West could start picking up the pieces.
So, the United States might start expanding territorially by taking over Greenland, the Panama Canal, and maybe Canada as well.
The convicted felon rapist is a profoundly ignorant man whose knowledge about the world seems to be limited to what he has gleaned from watching television.
During his first presidency, world leaders, especially many of the European politicians he met, were transfixed by his mental tabula rasa. The one time he was caught with a book in hand – an upside down the Bible, no less – was in the notorious photo-op at St. John’s Church during the George Floyd protests in Washington.
As if ignorance were not bad enough, America’s president-elect has been held liable for sexual assault and is a convicted felon, a friend to nativists and racists, a coup plotter and rabble-rouser, and a serial liar who touts the virtues of fictional cannibals.
He is a classic con man – and more than half of America’s voters can’t seem to get enough of him.
Impeached twice during his first term, Trump was twice pronounced fit by his party’s senators to be the leader of the largest democracy in the West.
By voting twice to acquit Trump, Republican senators refused to disqualify Trump from the US presidency permanently – and thereby deliberately and directly enabled his return.
The ripple effects of this catastrophe go well beyond putting an ugly face on the American Dream.
The convicted felon rapist host of a reality television show and owner of the Miss Universe pageant.
A man who reportedly strolled unannounced into a dressing room full of half-naked teenage pageant contestants is pushing the founders’ intricate and inspiring Enlightenment project over the brink.