Why Doesn't the "Trump is a Fascist" Stuff Land?
You’d think Americans would be upset about un-American behavior
The list of things a person needs to do to be an American in good standing is pretty short. You need to have seen the original Star Wars. You have to either like baseball or think cricket is stupid, either is fine. On July 4, you have to grill something, anything — it could be vegetarian chili, just get it on the grill somehow. And you have to accept that we choose our leaders by voting.
Trump obviously doesn’t accept that we choose our leaders by voting. He’s made that clear at every point in his political career, and in 2020, he made it beyond clear. One odd thing about the attempted autogolpe is that a lot of people didn’t take it seriously because it was pretty clearly going to fail. The effect was sort of like a weiner dog trying to rip out your throat: The intent is scary on paper, but the reality is so misguided that it’s almost cute. And that’s probably why a lot of people saw things like Trump’s silly little legal team showing up at Four Seasons Total Landscaping and just thought: “Awwwww.”
Shouldn’t the autogolpe have ended Trump’s political career? Isn’t that “game over” for any other American politician? A lot of people thought that it was — the standard Republican logic for not impeaching Trump after January 6 was that he was politically dead anyway. But here he is, perhaps our next president. Why doesn’t pointing out Trump’s obvious authoritarianism seem to resonate with voters? I have some theories.