Anger has long played a key role in authoritarian regimes. Since before Julius Caesar, slick propagandists with fascist agendas have routinely used the anger of the downtrodden to market lies and distract attention. The Republican party, taking full advantage of the ignorance and poor education of its constituency, has learned well how to gull the gullible into ignoring their own interests and focusing instead on their anger. Not that the anger isn’t real. It roils in the gut of people who sense they’ve been screwed, but who aren’t sure how, why, or by whom. They just feel messed with, and in the absence of coherent explanations they look for someone to be angry at. Right-wing media is, of course, happy to provide. In that airtight, fact-free bubble, there’s never a shortage of “other” people to blame for everything wrong in their lives: Blacks, women, immigrants, the deep state, Muslims, Jews, queer folk of every stripe, and most of all, Democrats. The anger is always on simme
We have arrived, at long last, at the beginning of what will soon be an avalanche of legal issues that are likely to dominate the rest of Donald Trump’s life. What will come of these cases remains up in the air, and the pace of legal procedure is frustratingly glacial. But regardless of the actual charges — or the evidence being brought — it has been evident to anyone paying attention that criminal behavior was the background hum of Trump’s entire career. Perhaps not surprisingly, it’s been evident to Trump as well. Which is why virtually his entire presidency begs to be seen — almost exclusively — through the lens of a guy fearing punishment. He was committing crimes to stay out of prison. An unusual approach, to be sure, but it's the underlying cause of every vile action of the Trump era. The media only rarely ties cause and effect together, which is disturbing. It’s not that they haven’t chronicled Trump’s crimes, it’s just that they either didn’t see, or couldn’t acknow