How We Let Trump Destroy US

I told you so.

Five years ago, in November of 2015, I watched and listened with disbelief as people in power of different kinds — politics, business, news media — debated or flatly accepted atrocious, even horrific statements and proposed actions that even in my wildest imaginings I never dreamed might take place in this country.

I knew I was witnessing the advent of a leader who could do great damage, and who would do that damage if the people of the United States of America stepped aside and allowed him to do it.

I discussed these concerns in an essay called “The Dangers of Dismissing Donald Trump’s Hateful Rhetoric,” and an editor from a major national news magazine wrote to me that “any comparison between 1930s Europe and the United States is hyperbole and not something we would consider publishing.”

To be clear, any comparison I made in 2015 between Donald Trump and Adolph Hitler was a comparison between two charismatic up-and-coming politicians who were dismissed broadly by opponents and by columnists, news editors and other pundits as clowns.

Candidate Trump criticized an American judge of Mexican ancestry in such a way that then-Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) said it was “the textbook definition of a racist comment. I disavow.” Ryan then immediately endorsed Donald Trump for…