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[markodochartaigh]

6. It's nothing new. And they don't see themselves as evil.

The pioneers wiping out whole villages of Native Americans did not see themselves as evil. The plantation owners did not see themselves as evil, and their Northern business partners were able to get over any discomfort they felt when they bought the cotton. General Jacob "Howling Wilderness" Smith received a harsher punishment for a gambling debt than for ordering his men to kill everyone over the age of 10 on the island of Samar. Look at the sympathetic treatment that William Calley received from the US public after the My Lai massacre. There are too many other examples to list.

About one third of the population are authoritarians today. It may have been fewer in the past, or it may have been more. When you hear the maga people say "Trump says out loud what we feel" or "Now we can say the quiet part out loud", they are saying that they felt that way all along, not that Trump has sparked a fire of cruelty in their soul which was not previously present.

It is difficult to see any silver lining in the Trumpnado cloud ravaging the nation, but at least now people who previously apparently had no understanding of the deep strain of authoritarianism in the US are waking up.