I’ve felt a little flat politically this week. Maybe its projection, but this site has felt a little deflated too. Just a bit. For myself, I am sure of the answer. After Trump has been President for 3 or 4 weeks — after all of the immediate, almost shocking, multi-faceted confirmation by Trump of his ignorance, incompetence, looniness, unfitness, danger, absurdity, embarrassment — it is simply undeniable now that a significantly large portion of the country is dumb-as-a-brick, is constitutionally incapable of doing better.
That’s a depressing reality. I’ve always sort of thought it true, but in a fleeting, dismissive and cynical way. It is something else entirely to have to really, deeply confront the dysfunction of much of the electorate. To realize that there is no hope, and that some 60 million plus of the voting population is going to be a destructive, ignorant force for a long time, and at many levels of government.
To be clear: I never expected Trump "to pivot" as popularly discussed. That was always absurd. But I've realized that I did believe that the American electorate would pivot eventually. That, at some point, the electorate broadly would return to treating Trump as an absurd, fringe character.
This last month of an actual Trump presidency has popped that bubble permanently. There is no longer any excuse, no longer any rationalizing away the obvious. A significantly large percentage of the population is lost. Crucially, they won't "get" the next Trump either. They are not capable of it and so the threat is much larger than Trump.
Maybe the best way I can describe it is for anyone unlucky enough to have circumstances finally force them to face some ugly truths about a family member. “You know what? My child is not just rebellious, or going through a stage. She is mentally ill.” “Oh no. My spouse is not just unreliable or moody; he is damaged and abusive.”
That, unavoidably, is where I am now about the significant Trump voting portion of the population.
I don't say this to be defeatist, or to diminish in any way the call for all of us to defeat the problem of modern Republicanism. I understand how high the stakes are more now than ever.
I’ve just gone through that weary moment, where you really take a breath and admit: “Oh shit, this is so much worse and deeper than I ever thought in my worst moments before. My country, and my co-citizens, are in a much worse condition than I’ve ever been willing to truly admit.”
Ugh. This is a dark period, and we have a long, hard slog in front of us.