Donald Trump’s inexplicably viable, front-runner status—despite his unprincipled, embarrassing track record and ongoing fraud and criminal legal problems—is an indictment of American democracy. And it hardly helps that “debates” are staged performance art, and fund-raising and advertising can be more consequential than a candidate’s policies. And it’s beyond worrisome that Trump has doubled down on his authoritarian essence with this rally warning: “I am your retribution.”
This can’t be what anyone—possibly including MAGA minions and the Koch Brothers–had in mind about American “exceptionalism.”