Trump's threat to democracy [View all]
Polite society warns against the drawing of certain historical parallels. But as another tumultuous year of Donald Trumps presidency draws to a close, it seems like a good time to ask: Where does one look for a political equivalent in a year when the presidents supporters chanted send her back about a nonwhite member of Congress?
Should we attach a bland label like illiberalism to such a wretched public display when fascism fits so much better? And what term best describes a 2019 political rally where a U.S. president, who had previously suggested the shooting of migrants, laughed as a supporter shouted that they should be gunned down at the border?
Do we bite our tongues as Trump apologists dismiss this rhetoric as harmless? Do we stay silent as left-wing commentators claim this to be the natural progression of Reagan conservatism? How do we define Trumps slandering of Hispanics as breeders? How should newspaper editors and political leaders label a presidency that inspired white supremacists such as David Duke to celebrate Trumps moral equivocation after Charlottesville? Terms such as illiberalism and conservatism seem both inaccurate and inadequate.
It is difficult to remember a time when Trump was seen as little more than a bumptious reality star who plastered his name on steaks, water bottles and apartment buildings around the world. Manhattan society long viewed the reality hosts career as the vulgar elevation of a trashy aesthetic, but millions of Americans always saw something more. Even during his political ascent, Republican and Democratic leaders alike shared Sen. Lindsey O. Grahams view that the future president was a clown who had neither the character nor intelligence to be Americas next commander in chief. But elites failure to grasp Trumps appeal, then and now, made him a greater threat to the natural checks and balances of Madisonian democracy.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-threat-to-democracy/2019/12/30/c8531bc8-2b2f-11ea-bcd4-24597950008f_story.html