Amanda Carpenter: “On Saturday, President Donald J. Trump emerged from his West Palm Beach voting center, boasting he voted a ‘straight Republican ticket.’ A ‘straight Republican ticket’ in his congressional district—the Florida 21st—is one that includes House candidate Laura Loomer, a QAnon supporter who gained notoriety for being so bigoted that she became, according to herself, the ‘most banned woman on the planet.’ From there, Trump jetted off on Air Force One to dance to the Village People’s ‘YMCA’ at yet another rally amid the pandemic that has struck dead 225,000 Americans. Four years ago, it would have been impossible to imagine such a vignette—because before Trump became president, most people had no idea what a ‘coronavirus’ was and QAnon didn’t yet exist. Now, though, these hateful mental and physical plagues are inescapable.”
“They are dominant facts of our personal lives and our national politics. This is America on Trump. We have become a country where an entire party will go along thinking that anything that reflects poorly on Trump can be connected to a shadowy enemy or evil cabal—the ‘deep state,’ the regime behind the ‘China virus,’ the Obama administration, or the Biden campaign. Connecting the dots is so easy that any redpill addict can do it. One of the main benefits of Trumpism is that it doesn’t require much intellectual work.”