The Monsters We Have to Fear Most

They're Hard to Spot, But They're Everywhere

The hopes that President Biden’s interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC would end the debate about his age and candidacy were dashed by the fact that Biden did just fine…well enough to please he supporters, not well-enough to silence his critics.

You can expect the controversy to continue for as long as he remains in the race and indeed, through his next term of office should he be reelected. It is in the interest of too many people to keep the issue alive for it to go away. And, let’s face it, he’s not getting any younger.

So, for now, this issue will bubble until it reaches a point of criticality or for the next four years if it does not.

Instead, let’s turn our attention to one of the most pernicious phenomena shaping political attitudes in America right now, a factor that if unchecked is probably as likely as any to lead to the re-election of Donald Trump. It has been around and dangerous for as long as Trump. But, it is reappearing…almost unbelievably given Trump’s record.

It is the normalization of Trump by apparently respectable human beings.

An example of this of great consequence came in the Supreme Court’s immunity decision. In the opinion handed down by Chief Justice John Roberts he pooh-poohed as hysterical the idea that a president would abuse power in the way those who opposed the decision, like Justice Sonia Sotomayor, suggested.  He did this in spite of the fact the case had come to the court’s attention in the first place because of an actual attempted coup. Use the presidency to order the death of rivals? Hysterical! Unless you consider the gallows erected on the Capitol steps for Vice President Pence or the plans of some of January 6 rioters hailed by Trump as heroes to hunt down Speaker of the House Pelosi or you recall Trump once suggested that General Mark Milley be shot as a “traitor.” Or the fact that Trump had once wanted to order protestors shot down in the streets. Or that he wanted to throw his opponents in jail. Hysterical.

Roberts is, of course, a professional normalizer for the far right. He looks like a buttoned- down reasonable man until you examine just what it is he has been defending and enabling.