Well-Worth Reading

As readers of these pages know, I have been writing for a long time that, "This isn't about Trump, we know who he is.  This is about the elected members of the Republican Party who enable him and are complicit."

So, it was a total joy to read this absolutely wonderful long and detailed column in the Washington Post yesterday by Paul Waldman.  It makes largely the same point but with so much more verve and specifics than any pithy two sentences could do. Though titled, "Can we stop pretending Trump is fit to be president?", the article goes much deeper and that question is really directed to Republicans in Congress, not the majority of Americans who long ago stopped pretending.

At the heart of the column is this passage --

"The truth is that Trump is not much more despicable of a human being than he has always been; it’s just that standard Trumpian behavior becomes more horrifying when it occurs during an ongoing national crisis. It is reality that changed around him, and he was incapable of responding to it.

"We all know this. In public, Republicans may say that the real villain in the pandemic is China, or that all those deaths — and the tens of thousands yet to come — were inevitable, or that it is essential to get the economy moving. But they know as well as the rest of us do what a catastrophic failure Trump has been.

"They must own the moral choice they now make. In 2016, they said Trump would grow serious and sober once he was faced with the awesome responsibilities of the office. There was little reason at the time to think it would happen, but it was at least possible.

"No one can say that now. Not only do we know who Trump is, we know who he will always be. And we know that reelecting him will be disastrous in a hundred ways."

But there is so much more.  And it's just as eloquent and pointed, full of explanations of past history that give substance to it all.

You can read the whole thing here.  Hopefully the article will be accessible to all.