Had a really fascinating conversation where the conclusion reached was that trump is not some kind of aberration. He is America’s Id basically.

He is America with the volume cranked to eleven and the lines running to the Puritan normative breaks cut. He is President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho.

He’s exactly what we’ve been all along, which in some ways is great, because now all that he is is confronting and arresting. A collective indictment, and people on both sides are too given to tribalism to realize that I think.

And so it just becomes about owning the libs or owning the magafolk and no real serious self reflection or criticism - which is, after all, pretty much Trump to a T.

A rugged, unreliable narrator kind of individualism that has no use of doubt, and therefore no place for faith. Revulsion to any self reflection, that favors certitude above all else.

Confidence.

Con men.

And man, we love it.

Even when we say we hate it, we love it.

We tuned in, man. We all did. What outrageous thing is he gonna do now? What outrageous thing, indeed.

But it’s been us, all along.

I love America, but we have a lot of blood on our hands. And we run from that, and that’s one thing we admire about Trump.

He’s run and escaped from pretty much every awful thing he’s ever done.

So have we. Things we’ve never reckoned with. Things we never will. Genocide. Slavery. Racism.

We’ve always wanted to run.

The American dream isn’t one where we have to have any kind of accountability.

Point being, yeah, he’s repugnant and lacks depth or any kind of remorse. He’s venal and vile and morbidly amusing.

But he’s also, in a way, almost our platonic ideal.

And that reflects on more than just the folks in the dumb red hats.