We were warned it would be bad.
 | By Lauren Kelley Editorial board member |
It’s difficult to have perspective on a tumultuous time while it’s still playing out. But my colleague, the columnist Michelle Goldberg, has done a great job of that in her cover story for this week’s Sunday Review, “Trumpism’s Inevitable End.” |
Michelle is right. The Trump era wound up being just as horrific as many warned it would be, culminating in a few of the most mind-bending weeks of many of our lives. |
“When a mob incited by the president ransacked the Capitol, killing one policeman and pummeling others, it also tore down a veil,” Michelle writes. “Suddenly, all but the most fanatical partisans admitted that Trump was who his fiercest critics have always said he was.” |
As Michelle also notes in her piece: This is cold comfort, if it’s comfort at all. Still, we can do something with this knowledge. Reflecting on some of the movements and people who presaged much of what’s happening in America right now could help us prevent this nightmare from repeating itself. |
For starters, there were the many, many people of color who early on sounded the alarm about President Trump’s racism and its terrible implications. And there were the disinformation experts who warned that electing a serial liar president could be a major problem for our democracy. |
There was also the reproductive justice movement, which I’ve come to know well over the past decade while covering the erosion of abortion rights in America. It was no surprise that a number of prominent anti-abortion activists turned up in the throng at the Capitol last week. |
That’s not just because these folks see Trump as the most anti-abortion leader this nation has ever had. It’s also because a subset of the movement is practiced in taking radical, and occasionally violent, action against their perceived enemies — and those enemies’ places of business. Abortion clinics are routinely vandalized and looted. Patients are harassed and demeaned. Several doctors and numerous other bystanders have even been murdered. |
The people engaging in these terrible acts have almost always been fed a steady diet of lies. They’ve become convinced that they’re stopping an atrocity, rather than committing one. Save the babies. Stop the steal. |
“The violent far right appears to have been emboldened by the experience of being treated as valued constituents,” Michelle writes. Trump probably won’t be the last American politician to spur on dangerous radicals. But maybe the next time someone Trumpian runs for president, we’ll heed the warning signs. |
Note: This newsletter will be off Monday for the holiday. We will see you in your inbox Tuesday. |
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