I’m just 13 months older than Donald Trump, so he and I have shared the experience of growing up and growing old in this country. I spent just over 40 of those years teaching American history at the elementary level in NYC while he was building his real estate ‘empire’ there. And for a brief time in the early sixties, we were both students at the Wharton School at UPenn (no, to the best of my memory I never met him there).
I didn’t pay much attention to Trump during my tenure in NYC. I was never tempted to watch The Apprentice. Indeed, what I remember most about him were his renovations of the Wollman skating rink in Central Park. And even that was largely because the second school at which I taught hosted an annual skating party for students, faculty, and parents there. Also I frequently popped up out of the Columbus Circle subway station on my way to work, and so was regularly confronted with Trump Tower.
His first election to the presidency felt so completely insane to me that I still have a great deal of trouble imagining that enough Americans thought him an appropriate choice to actually put him in that office. I retired from teaching in June of 2016, so I did experience working with a final sixth grade American history class during the initial stages of his campaign, and I clearly recall that some of my kids were already echoing their parents’ debates about him.
Sorry for the long intro, but one does get this way toward the end of a life.
My point, if I have one, is still one of a kind of amazement bordering on downright awe that such a man could be seen by so many Americans as the solution to whatever problems they thought we had, let alone that so many of our elected representatives could still, after ten years’ experience with him both in and out of office, think him worthy of any ‘job’ but that of digging through someone’s garbage pile.
I don’t for a minute assume that all Trump supporters do so for identical reasons. In my most charitable moments I imagine that, as in all cases of successful demagoguery, many may simply be seeking out one who seems to have a set of clear and simple solutions to problems they find insoluble.
But in the end, I keep returning to the same essential problem, and I admit it is because of the profession I chose.
No one who has any understanding of the nature and purpose of our founding could conceive of Donald Trump as president of the United States. It simply is not possible. And therein lies our collective failure, perhaps attributable to an appalling level of complacency about the fragility of our Republic.
Both Trump and I have watched as the Arsenal of Democracy has descended from the economic and moral power which spent so much blood and treasure to defeat the most monstrous evil in human history along with it’s Asian counterpart into the social, religious, and political morass which could within only 80 years produce President Donald J Trump.
I don’t spend much time defining or contemplating whether the current iteration of the Party of Lincoln is a cult or not. The rotted corpse of the party who fought and won the Civil War would be as odious and smell as rank under any definition. And quite frankly if it was the Epstein files that finally made Massie ‘see the light’, I would deem that to be far too little and far too late. Of all the reasons to turn away from Trump, that one seems almost paltry compared to much of the rest of the depredations of which he and his collection of ethically vacant sycophants have been the authors.
I don’t know if as a people we are capable of the kind of reset which will be necessary if we are to relegate Trumpism to the trash pile, and at my age I doubt if I will live to see whether we can or not. I keep replaying in my mind the final scene in The Bridge on the River Kwai, “Madness, Madness.”
It pains me to see what my home state has become. I have to admit that I was more than ready to see Logan County in my rear view mirror, at age 20, when I left. I grew up in a political family, but most people I knew were democrats and the primary for that party was the state election. Things change, since MAGA came to be, and the odd thing is, most of the people I know who are MAGA are still registered as democrats and proud of it. Maybe when Trump is gone, they will go back to being democrats. People I grew up with knew a Flim-Flam man when they saw one, somehow were fooled by this one. Hoping for better day in my "Old Kentucky Home".
Somehow, I think Thomas Massie found his humanity once the Epstein Files became available. It was a bridge too far even for him who voted for Trump's "policies" 91% of the time.
You're on the right track, but how about pushing it a little further? I've been to a bunch of NO KINGS rallies but I also know that the framing distorts what we're dealing with. "No Kings" is catchy, it fits neatly on a sign, but we're not dealing with a king or even a king wannabe. Among other things, the legitimacy of kings, and of royalty in general, depends on their lineage. Some Americans in the 1780s wanted to make George Washington king. In what may have been his most consequential decision, Washington said no. The U.S. has seen plenty of political dynasties, but royalty they are not.
Hardcore Trump supporters may indeed constitute a cult, but the word tends to isolate them from the mainstream and also to minimize the potential danger. (Watch newsreels of Hitler's Nuremberg rallies. If that was a cult, it was powerful enough to turn the world upside down.) Much of the white U.S. electorate has been moving in an anti-democratic direction at least since Reagan, and what did Reagan do with his mandate? He threw plenty of red meat (actually it was white meat) to his popular base while relaxing restraints on his corporate and ultra-wealthy backers. Sound familiar?
Trump II has taken it further than those around Reagan ever dared, no matter how much they might have wished they could. Reagan supporters never stormed the Capitol -- they didn't have to. What we have to remember is that the myriad iron filings will still be there when the Trump, the magnet, disappears.
Massie is the poster child for FAFO. In the immortal words of Rick Wilson”everything Trump touches, dies”. Many refuse to believe it, even though the proof is there for all to see. Trump somehow convinces everyone in his orbit that THEY are special and that THEY won’t get exile and ruin, and yet it happens over and over again. Cornyn thought that HE would be immune to it, testing the classic FAFO by trying to seem restrained and decent while furiously sucking up to a craven coward and liar who wrecks people for his personal enjoyment. The test js over, and Cornyn failed. Every MAGA, MAGA-leaning and MAGA-curious politician should take this stuff as an object lesson, but they won’t. Because THEY are special. Until they’re not.
My deep concern is that ‘We the People’ are in the age of Trump-ism not just Trump. Imho, America 🇺🇸 is very, very, very ill 🤒, the only real question 🙋♂️ is whether it’s terminal. When Ben Franklin said upon the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention ~ Madam you have "A republic, if you can keep it", he was issuing a stark warning. He meant that the delegates had designed a government "by and for the people", but its survival ultimately depended on the active civic engagement, vigilance, and virtue of everyday citizens. ‘We the People’ certainly have been in very dire straits before in our 250 year history and were able to recover. I hope 🤞 and pray 🙏 as I’m sure do you that we do so yet again. I deeply believe that we need to find and elect a POTUS who both understands and has the political capabilities to address the USA’s societal issues of this AI Revolution 🤖 Age as FDR did those of his Industrial 👷♂️Revolution Age. 🙏❤️🩹🇺🇸🌎🌍🌏
“And until enough of those voters find their own Epstein files moment — their own point where the leader’s behavior becomes too expensive to rationalize — the mall stays open, the line stays long, and the man in the red suit keeps taking the wishlist back to Mar-a-Lago.”
As always, great post. Paul Krugman posted this morning a piece on the 2 economic realities of our time, one actually real and the other of course the fevered demented made-up shit coming out of what’s left of the convicted felon’s brain. Surveys reveal that only 19% of the cult calling itself the Republican Party identifies with MAGA and its insanity. Good news I suppose that it’s that small. For those people it’s safe to say there will never be an Epstein files moment. Non-MAGAs are beginning to see the light, more a groceries/gallon-of-gasoline price moment than Epstein, but whatever it takes is better than nothing. That said, we will never be out of the woods with these people. They are as American as apple pie, fireworks on the Fourth of July and will be with us forever and ever. The battle to attain the ideal never ends.
Thank you, Kristoffer for your article. Rep Massey, I hope reads every single name on the Epstein files on the congressional record on the floor. These women are not going anywhere. The lawyers , in my opinion settle and the money goes to pay for legal counsel. They deserve justice from anyone on that file. It’s my hope Pam Bondi is eventually charged with a crime. Yes Massey ran straight into a cult, like you say. Let’s see if he dishes out a retribution from the floor of congress for these victims. This cult only can be stopped if and when Trump leaves office. If you like good live stream chats and content please consider subscribing to Lincoln Square.
Contintinued sunshine and citizen investigation on the Epstein files is one of the biggest Achilles heels for the MAGA cult -- outside of the illegal war with Iran and “its the economy, stupid”.
I’m just 13 months older than Donald Trump, so he and I have shared the experience of growing up and growing old in this country. I spent just over 40 of those years teaching American history at the elementary level in NYC while he was building his real estate ‘empire’ there. And for a brief time in the early sixties, we were both students at the Wharton School at UPenn (no, to the best of my memory I never met him there).
I didn’t pay much attention to Trump during my tenure in NYC. I was never tempted to watch The Apprentice. Indeed, what I remember most about him were his renovations of the Wollman skating rink in Central Park. And even that was largely because the second school at which I taught hosted an annual skating party for students, faculty, and parents there. Also I frequently popped up out of the Columbus Circle subway station on my way to work, and so was regularly confronted with Trump Tower.
His first election to the presidency felt so completely insane to me that I still have a great deal of trouble imagining that enough Americans thought him an appropriate choice to actually put him in that office. I retired from teaching in June of 2016, so I did experience working with a final sixth grade American history class during the initial stages of his campaign, and I clearly recall that some of my kids were already echoing their parents’ debates about him.
Sorry for the long intro, but one does get this way toward the end of a life.
My point, if I have one, is still one of a kind of amazement bordering on downright awe that such a man could be seen by so many Americans as the solution to whatever problems they thought we had, let alone that so many of our elected representatives could still, after ten years’ experience with him both in and out of office, think him worthy of any ‘job’ but that of digging through someone’s garbage pile.
I don’t for a minute assume that all Trump supporters do so for identical reasons. In my most charitable moments I imagine that, as in all cases of successful demagoguery, many may simply be seeking out one who seems to have a set of clear and simple solutions to problems they find insoluble.
But in the end, I keep returning to the same essential problem, and I admit it is because of the profession I chose.
No one who has any understanding of the nature and purpose of our founding could conceive of Donald Trump as president of the United States. It simply is not possible. And therein lies our collective failure, perhaps attributable to an appalling level of complacency about the fragility of our Republic.
Both Trump and I have watched as the Arsenal of Democracy has descended from the economic and moral power which spent so much blood and treasure to defeat the most monstrous evil in human history along with it’s Asian counterpart into the social, religious, and political morass which could within only 80 years produce President Donald J Trump.
I don’t spend much time defining or contemplating whether the current iteration of the Party of Lincoln is a cult or not. The rotted corpse of the party who fought and won the Civil War would be as odious and smell as rank under any definition. And quite frankly if it was the Epstein files that finally made Massie ‘see the light’, I would deem that to be far too little and far too late. Of all the reasons to turn away from Trump, that one seems almost paltry compared to much of the rest of the depredations of which he and his collection of ethically vacant sycophants have been the authors.
I don’t know if as a people we are capable of the kind of reset which will be necessary if we are to relegate Trumpism to the trash pile, and at my age I doubt if I will live to see whether we can or not. I keep replaying in my mind the final scene in The Bridge on the River Kwai, “Madness, Madness.”
It pains me to see what my home state has become. I have to admit that I was more than ready to see Logan County in my rear view mirror, at age 20, when I left. I grew up in a political family, but most people I knew were democrats and the primary for that party was the state election. Things change, since MAGA came to be, and the odd thing is, most of the people I know who are MAGA are still registered as democrats and proud of it. Maybe when Trump is gone, they will go back to being democrats. People I grew up with knew a Flim-Flam man when they saw one, somehow were fooled by this one. Hoping for better day in my "Old Kentucky Home".
Somehow, I think Thomas Massie found his humanity once the Epstein Files became available. It was a bridge too far even for him who voted for Trump's "policies" 91% of the time.
You're on the right track, but how about pushing it a little further? I've been to a bunch of NO KINGS rallies but I also know that the framing distorts what we're dealing with. "No Kings" is catchy, it fits neatly on a sign, but we're not dealing with a king or even a king wannabe. Among other things, the legitimacy of kings, and of royalty in general, depends on their lineage. Some Americans in the 1780s wanted to make George Washington king. In what may have been his most consequential decision, Washington said no. The U.S. has seen plenty of political dynasties, but royalty they are not.
Hardcore Trump supporters may indeed constitute a cult, but the word tends to isolate them from the mainstream and also to minimize the potential danger. (Watch newsreels of Hitler's Nuremberg rallies. If that was a cult, it was powerful enough to turn the world upside down.) Much of the white U.S. electorate has been moving in an anti-democratic direction at least since Reagan, and what did Reagan do with his mandate? He threw plenty of red meat (actually it was white meat) to his popular base while relaxing restraints on his corporate and ultra-wealthy backers. Sound familiar?
Trump II has taken it further than those around Reagan ever dared, no matter how much they might have wished they could. Reagan supporters never stormed the Capitol -- they didn't have to. What we have to remember is that the myriad iron filings will still be there when the Trump, the magnet, disappears.
Massie is the poster child for FAFO. In the immortal words of Rick Wilson”everything Trump touches, dies”. Many refuse to believe it, even though the proof is there for all to see. Trump somehow convinces everyone in his orbit that THEY are special and that THEY won’t get exile and ruin, and yet it happens over and over again. Cornyn thought that HE would be immune to it, testing the classic FAFO by trying to seem restrained and decent while furiously sucking up to a craven coward and liar who wrecks people for his personal enjoyment. The test js over, and Cornyn failed. Every MAGA, MAGA-leaning and MAGA-curious politician should take this stuff as an object lesson, but they won’t. Because THEY are special. Until they’re not.
Thank you Kristoffer!
My deep concern is that ‘We the People’ are in the age of Trump-ism not just Trump. Imho, America 🇺🇸 is very, very, very ill 🤒, the only real question 🙋♂️ is whether it’s terminal. When Ben Franklin said upon the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention ~ Madam you have "A republic, if you can keep it", he was issuing a stark warning. He meant that the delegates had designed a government "by and for the people", but its survival ultimately depended on the active civic engagement, vigilance, and virtue of everyday citizens. ‘We the People’ certainly have been in very dire straits before in our 250 year history and were able to recover. I hope 🤞 and pray 🙏 as I’m sure do you that we do so yet again. I deeply believe that we need to find and elect a POTUS who both understands and has the political capabilities to address the USA’s societal issues of this AI Revolution 🤖 Age as FDR did those of his Industrial 👷♂️Revolution Age. 🙏❤️🩹🇺🇸🌎🌍🌏
“And until enough of those voters find their own Epstein files moment — their own point where the leader’s behavior becomes too expensive to rationalize — the mall stays open, the line stays long, and the man in the red suit keeps taking the wishlist back to Mar-a-Lago.”
As always, great post. Paul Krugman posted this morning a piece on the 2 economic realities of our time, one actually real and the other of course the fevered demented made-up shit coming out of what’s left of the convicted felon’s brain. Surveys reveal that only 19% of the cult calling itself the Republican Party identifies with MAGA and its insanity. Good news I suppose that it’s that small. For those people it’s safe to say there will never be an Epstein files moment. Non-MAGAs are beginning to see the light, more a groceries/gallon-of-gasoline price moment than Epstein, but whatever it takes is better than nothing. That said, we will never be out of the woods with these people. They are as American as apple pie, fireworks on the Fourth of July and will be with us forever and ever. The battle to attain the ideal never ends.
Thank you, Kristoffer for your article. Rep Massey, I hope reads every single name on the Epstein files on the congressional record on the floor. These women are not going anywhere. The lawyers , in my opinion settle and the money goes to pay for legal counsel. They deserve justice from anyone on that file. It’s my hope Pam Bondi is eventually charged with a crime. Yes Massey ran straight into a cult, like you say. Let’s see if he dishes out a retribution from the floor of congress for these victims. This cult only can be stopped if and when Trump leaves office. If you like good live stream chats and content please consider subscribing to Lincoln Square.
Contintinued sunshine and citizen investigation on the Epstein files is one of the biggest Achilles heels for the MAGA cult -- outside of the illegal war with Iran and “its the economy, stupid”.
Free journalism such as this is our only hope and way out
Only one consonant out.