The Bulwark: “Donald Trump entered our political bloodstream propelled by racism and mendacity – the bogus ‘birther’ movement intended to delegitimize America’s first black president. Six years later he is exiting our highest office trailing lies and extra-constitutional maneuvers aimed at maintaining power by disenfranchising black voters. In between he inflicted on us a presidency which was ignorant, cruel, reckless, lawless, divisive, and disloyal. Mendacity and bigotry became the mode of communication between America’s president and his party’s base. Not only did he worsen a deadly pandemic – by immersing an angry and alienated minority in his alternate reality, he is sickening our future.”

“Trump did not materialize from the ether. He rose from a political party bent on thwarting demographic change by subverting the democratic process; a party whose base was addicted to white identity politics, steeped in religious fundamentalism, and suffused with authoritarian cravings – a party which, infected by Trumpism, now spreads the multiple malignancies metastasized by Trump’s personal and political pathologies. Since the civil rights revolution triggered an influx of resentful Southern whites, the GOP has catered to white grievance and anxiety. Trump’s transformative contribution has been to make racial antagonism overt – a badge of pride that bonds him to his followers in opposition to a pluralist democracy that threatens their imperiled social and political hegemony.”