In today’s #MitchellMinute I am more alliterative than usual and use the phrase “pundits who piously pontificate about polarization.” https://youtu.be/qnCVNZagicY
@LincolnMitchell now it's here and we didn't even need WWI and a depression to put the country into a position to start accepting the strong man...just 40 years of trickle-down economics and erosion of the constitutional guardrails. I wonder if the sensible people in the Weimar Republic felt about Hitler like most of us today who see Trump for what he is and the fascist cult he created.
@hallmarc My mother is 83 and hates Trump, but your poing is a good one.
@LincolnMitchell how do we begin to deprogram 70M+ people while simultaneously shoring up democratic institutions? It took the Marshall plan and the other great powers to help Germany reinstitute democratic norms after the war. Short of civil war, I don't see it happening within a generation. Our adversaries no longer need to actively engage in disinfo campaigns. They just need to nudge the MAGA cult in the right direction.
@LincolnMitchell I'd like to think that my Hungarian born mother who survived the Holocaust and the possibly even worse Communist occupation of Hungary is turning over in her grave right now. But this is the most perplexing thing: she probably would have supported Trump if she were still alive at 82. The horrors of human nature and authoritarianism were on full display in the 20th century but for those of us born in the US after WWII, fascism could only be studied from a distance.