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As Pres. Trump becomes the first president to be impeached twice, my column looks at why that's not enough and we also have to deal with the ecosystem (Fox News, I'm talking to you) that promotes lunacy: https://nyti.ms/39yTVnW
As I was writing this column today, I had a call from a childhood friend who explained that Trump is just drawing out his critics so he can crack down on them and triumphantly serve his second term. I told him it was all a lie. He was startled that I could be so poorly informed.
The fanaticism among some Trump followers reminds me of extremists I covered in Pakistan, Yemen and Afghanistan, etc. They thought that 9/11 was orchestrated by Jews and the CIA. A similar miasma of bigotry & lies fires up some Trump loyalists today -- hence my column.
There are some lessons from the earlier war on terror that apply to this one. For example, we need moral clarity, and we should confront not only individual terrorists, but also the ecosystem that produces them: Extremist madrasas in Pakistan, extremist cable tv in the US.
I loathed the educated demagogues in Pakistan or Yemen who knew better but propagated hate and misinformation because they could benefit. The US equivalent are Trump, Cruz, Hawley.
Moral clarity is hard because it runs into bothsidesism and whataboutism, usually with some merit. But we can accept that the world is inconsistent and nuanced, and that our side too is flawed, while also recognizing the need for a moral compass to navigate it.
Moral clarity made a difference is in the leftist violence of the late 1960s. The public revulsion mattered. We need a similar revulsion to Trump's insurrection and to the Republicans complicit in it. Impeachment can help, but is not enough.
Finally, I'd note that leaders in Pakistan, Saudi etc were always in denial about the scale of domestic threats. So are we. Americans understand risks from Iran but downplay those from white nationalism and Trump's GOP extremism. More in my column: https://nyti.ms/39yTVnW
