I may be mis-reading what the article is trying to say - it was very difficult for me to follow - but it seems to me to be saying that Trump brought us into the nonsensical world of Wonderland, that he led us through the looking glass into madness.
From my perspective as an older person who can still recall The World That Was, Is No More, And Never Will Be Again, I'd have to say that what Trump did was to point out the madness and bring it to the front rather than creating it or leading us into it.
This "Wonderland" we find ourselves in has been a long time in the making, probably my entire life or longer, but over time has been accelerating into madness, and is now perched on the edge of the abyss, right at the edge of the rabbit hole, and teetering precariously. Trump didn't bring us here, but he DID shine a light on it, a light that appears to be pretty unwelcome in certain circles, mostly the circles that are driving the madness.
Neither the current Right nor the current Left are "conservative" in the sense that they both want to either return to or create anew a "paradise" that never was, nor ever can be. The problem is, the madness on both sides is a "vision" of, on the one hand, a world that has proven to be unworkable time and time again, and on the other hand a world that has proven to be self-destructive time and time again. Both of those worlds, both of those visions, have always, and always will, devolved into an authoritarian hell which humanity, or more precisely individual humans, have had to claw their way out of time and time again. We can never progress so long as we are continually falling into the pit and having to crawl back out, up to Square One, over and over again.
BOTH "sides", the Right and the Left, have the insane notion that only they can think right on behalf of everyone else, and have a duty to force other folks into their own mold. That, boys and girls, is the essence of the madness we find ourselves mired up in at the moment. Trump didn't do it, Hitler didn't do it, neither Mao nor Stalin did it to us - we did it to ourselves... and we keep on doing it.
In my opinion, the only way forward into any sort of progress is the "You do you, and let me do me" sort of philosophy. Folks need to take responsibility for their own lives, accept the responsibility for directing their own worlds, and leave the rest of humanity to do what suits them best. Folks need to stop trying to make rules for everyone else to follow based upon their own personal preferences. That is the very essence of authoritarianism, and continually doing it will continually lead to authoritarian rule that must be rebelled against, and societies will continue to collapse so long as everyone is still doing that.
If other folks make dumb decisions in your opinion, they should be allowed to do so. If their decisions truly are faulty, then Darwin will sort them out. It's not my, nor your, responsibility to do other folks' thinking for them. It's not our place to protect adults from themselves. If they can't do that on their own, then Darwin will take over and settle their hash. The sooner the world figures that out, the better off humanity will be.
So, in my opinion, Trump did not lead us here, Obama did not lead us here, Bush did not lead us here, Klinton did not lead us here, etc - we simply allowed ourselves to be pushed to the brink that we are currently perched upon. It's our own damned fault - WE did this. Even Biden did not lead us here - he's just the current, inept, monster in the closet. All of those regimes are simply symptoms, neither the illness nor the cure. They are only manifestations of who we want to tell us how to act - whether we want Right Wing Authoritarians or Left Wing Authoritarians to direct, order, and micromanage our own lives for us.
If that were not so, we would have all violently revolted by now.
Society needs very few rules to function properly, and all of those rules involve keeping your hands to yourself, leaving other folks alone to do as they wish, and not doing unnecessary and unwarranted harm to other folks. Don't murder, don't steal, don't tell other folks what to do unasked, don't needlessly wring their noses until the blood flows. That's really the essence of it, something I think we all learned in kindergarten, yet here we are, with everyone trying to make rules or laws to control everyone else and micromanage the lives of others based on one's own personal preferences.
Shame on us all. That's never gonna work, no matter which end of the political spectrum it comes from.
.
From my perspective as an older person who can still recall The World That Was, Is No More, And Never Will Be Again, I'd have to say that what Trump did was to point out the madness and bring it to the front rather than creating it or leading us into it.
This "Wonderland" we find ourselves in has been a long time in the making, probably my entire life or longer, but over time has been accelerating into madness, and is now perched on the edge of the abyss, right at the edge of the rabbit hole, and teetering precariously. Trump didn't bring us here, but he DID shine a light on it, a light that appears to be pretty unwelcome in certain circles, mostly the circles that are driving the madness.
Neither the current Right nor the current Left are "conservative" in the sense that they both want to either return to or create anew a "paradise" that never was, nor ever can be. The problem is, the madness on both sides is a "vision" of, on the one hand, a world that has proven to be unworkable time and time again, and on the other hand a world that has proven to be self-destructive time and time again. Both of those worlds, both of those visions, have always, and always will, devolved into an authoritarian hell which humanity, or more precisely individual humans, have had to claw their way out of time and time again. We can never progress so long as we are continually falling into the pit and having to crawl back out, up to Square One, over and over again.
BOTH "sides", the Right and the Left, have the insane notion that only they can think right on behalf of everyone else, and have a duty to force other folks into their own mold. That, boys and girls, is the essence of the madness we find ourselves mired up in at the moment. Trump didn't do it, Hitler didn't do it, neither Mao nor Stalin did it to us - we did it to ourselves... and we keep on doing it.
In my opinion, the only way forward into any sort of progress is the "You do you, and let me do me" sort of philosophy. Folks need to take responsibility for their own lives, accept the responsibility for directing their own worlds, and leave the rest of humanity to do what suits them best. Folks need to stop trying to make rules for everyone else to follow based upon their own personal preferences. That is the very essence of authoritarianism, and continually doing it will continually lead to authoritarian rule that must be rebelled against, and societies will continue to collapse so long as everyone is still doing that.
If other folks make dumb decisions in your opinion, they should be allowed to do so. If their decisions truly are faulty, then Darwin will sort them out. It's not my, nor your, responsibility to do other folks' thinking for them. It's not our place to protect adults from themselves. If they can't do that on their own, then Darwin will take over and settle their hash. The sooner the world figures that out, the better off humanity will be.
So, in my opinion, Trump did not lead us here, Obama did not lead us here, Bush did not lead us here, Klinton did not lead us here, etc - we simply allowed ourselves to be pushed to the brink that we are currently perched upon. It's our own damned fault - WE did this. Even Biden did not lead us here - he's just the current, inept, monster in the closet. All of those regimes are simply symptoms, neither the illness nor the cure. They are only manifestations of who we want to tell us how to act - whether we want Right Wing Authoritarians or Left Wing Authoritarians to direct, order, and micromanage our own lives for us.
If that were not so, we would have all violently revolted by now.
Society needs very few rules to function properly, and all of those rules involve keeping your hands to yourself, leaving other folks alone to do as they wish, and not doing unnecessary and unwarranted harm to other folks. Don't murder, don't steal, don't tell other folks what to do unasked, don't needlessly wring their noses until the blood flows. That's really the essence of it, something I think we all learned in kindergarten, yet here we are, with everyone trying to make rules or laws to control everyone else and micromanage the lives of others based on one's own personal preferences.
Shame on us all. That's never gonna work, no matter which end of the political spectrum it comes from.
.