The Trump industrial complex is collapsing and the Trump era is ending. Donald Trump will never be elected to public office again. He will likely be indicted and Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida will be the nominee-in-waiting by Valentine’s Day 2023 at the latest. It’s over.
What isn’t over are the consequences of the Trump cancer that coursed through American life and remade American politics in his loathsome image. He has ignited a vast extremist movement, nearly toppled American democracy, enthralled violent militias, invigorated white supremacists, stoked a cold civil war and engaged in vast personal corruption that beggars imagination.
Donald Trump was always exactly what he appeared to be. The disgustingness of this era was not wrought by Donald Trump alone. It was caused by the moral collapse of thousands of high elected officials, CEOs, and others into a state of complete submission and obedience around Donald Trump.
One by one, they gave in and became complicit and then deeply involved accomplices in what they knew to be deeply wrong and damaging to the country. Each repudiated every conviction, standard, belief and stated word that could be found to gain the favor of Donald Trump and stay safe from mean tweets. The result has been one of the worst political crises in American history that continues to unfold with total disaster — just having been narrowly averted.
Let’s look at the unprincipled sycophancy and hollowness of three putative presidential contenders.