This article by Christopher Browning published in The New York Review of Books puts the unprecedented polarization of American political life in an eery historical context. As he puts it, “Trump is no Hitler and Trumpism is not Nazism” but certain parallels are inescapable. The article surfaces an old question that I’ve harboured for almost a decade - Is the chaotic concentration of all power the intentional end-game of the Republican party or did they simply provoke the worst darkest tendencies of voters, only later finding they couldn’t control what they started? Whatever the answer to that question, the piece is worth reading if only to observe how beautiful sentences are crafted. The essay is that well-written.

“If the US has someone whom historians will look back on as the gravedigger of American democracy, it is Mitch McConnell. He stoked the hyperpolarization of American politics to make the Obama presidency as dysfunctional and paralyzed as he possibly could. As with parliamentary gridlock in Weimar, congressional gridlock in the US has diminished respect for democratic norms, allowing McConnell to trample them even more.”^[“The Suffocation of Democracy”, Browning, Christopher, October 25, 2018 issue, The New York Review of Books.]

As much as Trump’s base is to blame for the chaotic abdication of American leadership, the moderate Republican voter standing in the penumbra of Trump’s vile idiocy must share some of the blame. Almost never, in a political movement, does the base have enough mass to effect change. It requires consenting moderates. As Christopher Browning puts it:

“There seems to be nothing for which the demonization of Hillary Clinton does not serve as sufficient justification…” ^[Ibid.]

Collins to announce Kavanaugh position on Friday afternoon. (source) - seriously, how hard can this be?

Grassley: ‘We won’t know how it’s going to go until everybody casts their vote’ (source) - such erudition from a U.S. Senator. Wow.

This piece in The Atlantic by Adam Serwer is a reminder that for Trump’s supporters, cruelty isn’t just a side-effect of Trumpism. It’s a feature. That the current U.S. president chose to mock the victim of a sexual assault by a Supreme Court nominee is hardly surprising. But what little hope I had for Trump supporters, particularly those at the Mississippi rally who joined Trump in his mockery, is gone.

“Trump’s only true skill is the con; his only fundamental belief is that the United States is the birthright of straight, white, Christian men, and his only real, authentic pleasure is in cruelty. It is that cruelty, and the delight it brings them, that binds his most ardent supporters to him, in shared scorn for those they hate and fear: immigrants, black voters, feminists, and treasonous white men who empathize with any of those who would steal their birthright.”

How can the educational system have failed so miserably than to allow the ignorant to wallow in their own ignorance and bigotry? The South is the home of millions of adherents, faithful in word, at least, to a religion of kindness, meekness and tolerance. Yet the Venn circles of evangelicals and Trump supporters is near complete. The hypocrisy is nearly palpable.