So this is where, @TommyAmenta, I see support for my hypothesis that this isn't political anymore; it's not precisely a religion, but it has more in common with a religion than a political movement as we usually conceive of it. The fundamental thesis of the Trump Presidency--
https://twitter.com/mattwilstein/status/1313147374156410884
"I will keep you safe from bad, dangerous, impure foreign things"--has been about as comprehensively repudiated as it could be. Yet it doesn't matter. That "support for the President" number stays stable--42 percent--no matter what happens, no matter what's revealed,
no matter how much personal suffering people are experiencing because the President is bad at his job, no matter how clear it is that nothing he says is true and nothing he does has made America better in any way.
That kind of blind attachment to a man who isn't your son or your father or your husband is not normal, for politics in a democracy. It's much more like a cult, or politics in a fascist state. It's especially weird for Americans,
given our political culture and its emphasis on egalitarianism--no royalty, no Godmen; superheros, yes, but only in movies--and our creed of personal responsibility: We don't let anyone else off the hook for their personal or professional failings,
why do we make an exception for Donald Trump? To the point that people around him will do insane things to "prove him right," like declassifying a memo that's almost entirely blacked out and from which nothing can meaningfully be induced and announcing,
"See! The Mueller investigation was all a hoax!"--and guaranteed, his ardent enthusiasts will look at that document and it's blank, unyielding black squares and whip themselves into a frenzy because Trump has told them that this is a code for "It was all a hoax."
It's not normal politics anymore. What it is, I'm not sure, but it's a dangerous force.
"deduced," I mean.
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