Explaining Trumpism to Future Generations

There is only one explanation: The United States had become a land of “haves and have-nots,” the latter group consisting largely of white working-class individuals, angry at their failure to succeed financially, woefully undereducated, and as full of hate as they were of ignorance.

Along came a clever criminal who tapped into this toxic brew, and whipped them into a furor. His term in office was dominated by a huge spike in white nationalism, the rejection of science, xenophobia, and two impeachments.

Four years later, he lost his bid for re-election by more than seven million votes, but then came within a hair’s breadth of overthrowing the federal government in a desperate, seditious effort to stay in power.

Of course, all of this would have been impossible if congressional Republicans had had the courage to stand up to Trump’s lies and call him out over his vast array of crimes, but it was clear from the start that this wasn’t going to happen.  Here we had hundreds of folks with Ivy League educations and law degrees, who, for fear of losing their elections, pretended they were just as stupid as Trump’s base.

Eventually, this phenomenon, known as “Trumpism,” went dormant, but it’s impossible to believe that its ugliness and stupidity is gone forever.