The Trump Infection Point

Thoughts on the Morning: June 16th, 2025

One of the reasons I don’t give into the hysteria of the current moment is to me we’ve arrived at the logical outcome the US has been headed toward since I was alive if not all of it’s history.

I was born in the late 1970’s, the tail end of Generation X. I was listening to grunge music, and socially conscious hip hop when I started high school.

I’ve had a deep interest in history, particularly American history since I was a young boy. I visited Boston and walked the Freedom Trail when I was still in elementary school. When my family lived on Oahu my father took me on a tour of the airfield that still had the bullet marks from Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. I saw the USS Arizona Memorial.

Those early impression lead me to earning a Masters of Arts in World History with a focus on American Foreign Policy in China.

So I feel qualified enough to say we’re at an inflection moment in US history. One that’s been four decades in the making. We’re at the end phase of the Far Right, Movement Conservative, Reagan Republican era in US politics.

While this moment is definitely significant it’s no more important than all the more crucial moments we didn’t pay attention to leading up to it: The Citizen’s United Decision, Al Gore not Challenging the Florida Recount in the 2000 Presidental Election, President Obama not holding George W. Bush to account for Iraq or failing to prepare for 9/11, Donald Trump not being held to account for January 6th. Even our failures to hold Nixon to account for Watergate, Spiro Agnew for his separate corruption, and Reagan for Iran-Contra.

We’re at this moment because when we had choices to make as American citizens we chose the seemingly easier path. “We need to move on for the good of the country,” we were told by self-interested politicians and monied movers and shakers that stability was more important than accountability.

But the problem with that misguided, self-serving notion is when you there’s no accountability you can’t move on. You simply weaken the guardrails of democracy. The past isn’t buried or serves as an example. It’s still alive and well ready to corrode more norms and principles.

No one embodies this moment more than Donald J. Trump. And Trump wouldn’t be in power without the institutions like Fox News, and the Republican Party that enable him for their own purposes.

And his enablers will never have a “come to Jesus” moment. They are not going to suddenly realize they’ve gone too far. In fact they’ll go even further because they’ll be terrified of actually being held accountable.

Oh sure they’ll like and say they were “terrified” of Trump but they really aren’t. They scared of breaking away because they’re cowardly and terrified of accountability.

Because if History is any sort of guide that’s how this usually plays out. Rarely are dictators ever tried for their crimes. They either die just like everyone else in a banal but all too human manner, or they commit suicide.

That’s why those who are enabling Trump are terrified right now because they are usually held to account in the tyrant’s place. And they witnessed the numbers nationwide of the “No Kings” protest, and the worst of Trump’s policies haven’t even hit domestically yet. His weak and chaotic leadership abroad hasn’t fully played out yet. In fact it’s only just started.

So while the rest of the world will move on from the US it’ll be up to the rest of us to figure out where we go from here. And if his enablers had any sort of forethought they’d abandon Trump now so we could hold him accountable. Flip on the crime boss to get a better deal for themselves. But that won’t happen.

For some it’s too psychological painful to admit they’ve been conned. They’ll hang onto that delusion for as long as they can. For others they’ll cling to whatever sliver of a chance will let them maintain their proximity to power even as Trump tosses sycophant after sucker to the wolves to hang on himself.

But it will come undone. That I’m certain of. Because if the 1000 year Third Reich lasted only about a decade and a half I can safely say given the coordination we saw with the Trump Tyrant parade this last weekend our Punk Ass POTUS will collapse in record time.

And when he does we have to hold the machine with all of its operators and mechanics accountable for all Trump has wrought.

Because without them Trump would be just another bankrupt golf hustler with delusions of grandeur.