Trying To Understand Trump's Support, Still

 SHORTLY AFTER TRUMP TOOK OFFICE, a document signed by forty thousand social scientists of various sorts warned anyone able to read that Donald Trump was mentally, emotionally unfit for office. As is often the case in the United States of arrogance, where everyone is an expert on everything, the experts were largely ignored. Trump's mental, emotional illness, hence unfitness for office was evident from the outset of his campaign for the presidency, and became increasingly obvious as his term in office proceeded. His, supporters, many of whom seem to suffer from psychological pathologies similar to Trump's, seem to have embraced him al the more because of rather than in spite of all his mental illnesses. You might recall the first indications: he called Ted Cruz "lyin' Ted" at least fifty times during a two week span early in the Republican primary, and he accused Mexico of "sending" rapists and murderers across the border into the United Stats, as if by Federal Express. Delusional, pathologically dishonest, malignantly narcissistic, all on display by Trump very early, and very often. And yet, he attracted a cult following which still endures, despite his recent treasonous incitement to violence and insurrection of an angry mob. Among history's greatest mysteries is how the electorate of an advanced nation, a twenty first century society, a society with access to more information, knowledge, and education than any other past or present, could possibly have chosen as its head of state a person of such conspicuously malignant personal characteristics, who never made any attempt to conceal his true nature, who never pretended to be anything other that what he was and is. Most irrational tyrants come well disguised. People can be forgiven for misplacing trust in them. He made angry people feels as if he understood their anger, empathized with it, and could and would remedy it. It seems contrary to reason that in an educated democracy an angry mob would attempt to overthrow a democratically elected government and replace it with a recently democratically defeated demagogue. An examination of history, however, reveals that this has happened with surprising frequency. My friend and neighbor from Guatemala, where a few weeks ago an angry mob broke into the Capitol building and ransacked it, told me that he had hoped that he had gotten away from that sort of thing. I jokingly replied that anything they can do in Guatemala, we can do better in America, the land of opportunity.