re: #167 lawhawk

The truly insane bit is had Trump handled the pandemic in any semblance of semi competency, he would have easily won reelection. But his insane choice to purposefully make the pandemic as bad as possible for as many people as possible doomed his chances - killing 500,000+ Americans isn’t good for the resume of an American leader.

Jonathan Karl’s Betrayal has a very disturbing section (am about a third into the book) about a conversation he had with Will Steakin after Trump’s rally in Grand Rapids right before the election. He asked Will what he thought and Will said “I think he’s going to win”, a conclusion he had reached after attending multiple rallies and seeing the enthusiasm and excitement among the large numbers of Trump supporters, supporters who even before the election bought into the assertion that Trump could lose only if the election were rigged. Trump received 11 million more votes than in 2016 — he came within about 40,000 votes of winning, despite his disastrous mishandling of the pandemic.

He is the leader of a mindless cult, he is Hitler reborn with an uncanny skill at attracting followers, and almost the entire GOP party is either onboard or is too afraid to challenge him. Our future is bleak indeed unless we can find someway of dispelling the enchantment he holds over almost half our nation.