re: #49 Dr. Matt

Can we survive a Trump presidency in that we’ll still recognize this nation after 4 to 8 years of his potential damage?

The answer is an unqualified yes. It may not be an America or a government that I’m particularly proud of but it will still be America and it will still be recognizable. Even if the left were to suddenly disappear and, in a mere 4 or 8 years, the right was able to roll everything back to circa 1950, it would still be America and it would still be recognizable.

It might take generations to reverse the damage and retake our gains, but it would still be America.

The question itself bothers me though. I think that sounds uncomfortably close to something a right winger would have said regarding Obama in 2008 or regarding Hillary today. I think that kind of apocalyptic thinking is not helpful, not for the liberal side nor for the polity as a whole. It feeds into a way of thinking that is corrosive for our democracy: the idea that our political opponents, rather than simply having different opinions, want to destroy our country and our way of life.

The GOP has fed it’s base on that way of thinking for at least a decade now and it is coming back to poison and destroy the GOP. Let’s not follow them.