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A Miserable End to Four Years of Mob Rule
The Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol was a shock but it shouldn’t have been a surprise.
Right from the start we’ve struggled to define the Trump Administration’s particular brand of populism. Chaos. Authoritarianism. A con. A cult. An alternate reality. White nationalism. Fascism.
Finally we just called it Trumpism.
On January 6 we saw it for what it really is. Mob rule.
It took the brutalization of one of our most sacred democratic shrines to understand that. But look back over the past four years. Trump’s populist rhetoric has always been a thin veneer over something that operated more on the level of the barbarians sacking Rome.
Now the veneer is off. The lies spread by the president and his party have come home to roost. The Trumpists have stormed the gates. We’re left with the painful image of invaders standing in the chambers of the House and Senate. Some actually wearing horns and animal hides.
Future historians trying to sort all this out might want to start their analysis a dozen years back, with the presidency of Barack Obama — and the rise of the Tea Party.
The Obama administration came to power with an economic crisis on its hands and an ambitious…
