Ta-Nehisi Coates on the Consequence of Donald Trump
Writing for Vanity Fair (archive link), Ta-Nehisi Coates says that Donald Trump is the most visionary politician of his era.
Through a mix of moxie, cynicism, and misanthropy, Trump has made himself into the dominant American of our age. Sometimes a man meets his moment, and Trump met his in the wake of a black presidency and a conservative movement doggedly and patiently pursuing a decades-long counterrevolution. The marriage of Trump’s charisma to a fundamentalist right wing has been bountiful: three Supreme Court justices in four years, the subsequent destruction of national abortion rights, the banishment of affirmative action, the hollowing of the Voting Rights Act.
And the genie may not go back in the bottle:
But some things can’t be unseen. The example that Trump has set, the scope of what is possible should one embrace the dark powers of the White House, will not dissipate. It turns out that you can deploy secret police onto American streets. You can deport immigrants in defiance of the courts. You can have the Justice Department badger your enemies. And you can become very rich while doing it. And some of the most powerful sectors in America, those who most loudly extol their own love of country, will stand around and watch you do it. Asked why he was making deals during his second term, Trump gave a succinct and chillingly accurate summation: “I found out that nobody cared.” And to the extent that there is a genius to Trump, it is in his apprehension of this reality—so very few people who matter care. When you’re president, they let you do it.
Coates recently discussed this piece on Vanity Fair’s podcast.
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