Our national conversation is centered on “What should we fear?” and “Who should we blame?”

What was Trump? A fascist? A white nationalist? A malignant narcissist? A conservative with very bad manners? Once he became president, his only legislative achievement—a huge tax cut that heavily favored the rich and corporations—fit right in with Republican orthodoxy. His court appointments were friendly to business interests and also to religiou

“Trump is a creature native to our own style of government and therefore much more difficult to protect ourselves against,” the Yale political theorist Bryan Garsten wrote. “He is a demagogue, a popular leader who feeds on the hatred of elites that grows naturally in democratic soil.” A demagogue can become a tyrant, but it’s the people who put him

He’s had to distance himself from the worst of his followers. But he still knows how to rouse his rabble, how to reach out to poor people, and sic them on other poor people. How much of this nonsense does he believe, I wonder, and how much does he say just because he knows the value of dividing in order to conquer and to rule?