A pundit I have a lot of respect for recently posted this comment on Facebook.
“So basically the takeaway from the #Wolff book is that the emperor has no brain.”
She was mirroring the sentiments of a number of thinkers I also have a lot of respect for. Nonetheless, I think they’re all missing something.
This is what I replied:
” …and who somehow wound up as president having never held political office or a military commission.
I didn’t vote for the guy, but this is lazy thinking. Worse, I suspect it’s cowardly thinking. Trying to avoid thinking about something that is staring us all in the face. That some serious and far-reaching changes are happening in the system that are beyond anyone’s control and whose outcome is uncertain.
“I am reminded of what a Russian woman in Lithuania told me in the early ’90s, ‘It’s not a social revolution, it’s an earthquake.'”
Love Trump or loathe him, this was not a glitch of history we’re all going to chuckle about in a hundred years, like a kind of American Tulipomania.
People on the left who loathe Trump seem to think this heralds the dawn of American Fascism and say they’re alarmed.
They’re lying. They’re delighted.
Finally their Viewing with Alarm seemingly has a real life basis and they have a popular excuse to take to the streets and fight “fascism,” i.e. to satisfy a craving for dramatic action that gives meaning to their otherwise drab and frustrating lives. Plus an excuse to assault people they don’t like and be self-righteous about it.
Perhaps I should back off pouring scorn on that. I’ve probably irritated a fair number of people myself regaling them with tales of the months I spent marching with the people of Belgrade every day past heavily armed men back in the late ’90s. Because damn it, it does make life seem… bigger, zestier, more meaningful.
On the right those who loathe Trump seem to think he’s an embarrassing interlude in American politics and are alarmed he will totally discredit American conservatism.
They’re just as wrong.
American conservatism discredited itself a long time ago when it settled comfortably into the role of loyal opposition and junior partner in the elite establishment.
What I think is happening is a genuine revolution precipitated by what I call a “ruling class crisis,” a widespread conviction that we have a ruling class that is not fit to rule.
And that’s what people don’t want to think about. Trump is going to be gone, in seven years according to his supporters. In three years according to his detractors. Next month according to those who really don’t like him.
But this isn’t going away. Whatever happens over the next few years, things are not going back to “normal.”