Are people really willing to throw away the American political framework because a candidate they don’t like won an election?
I didn’t vote for Trump, but for all the concern that Trump is going to destroy America, the lack of faith and lack of support for our extremely successful democracy is what’s most worrisome. Thanks to the separation of powers, Trump can only do so much (shout-out to my second-grade teacher, Ms. Benson).
When comedian Sarah Silverman daydreamed on Twitter, “ONCE THE MILITARY IS W US FASCISTS GET OVERTHROWN. MAD KING & HIS HANDLERS GO BYE BYE,” does she understand that she’s calling for a banana republic-style military coup in a constitutional democracy?
Writing in New York magazine last week, the always-excitable Andrew Sullivan noted that we have become “less free” because Trump has become such an all-encompassing obsession for many people. But perhaps Trump shouldn’t be an all-encompassing obsession — you can feel free to take occasional breaks from politics, and in fact much of the country does. It’s easy for political journalists to fall into the trap of assuming everyone’s as obsessed with every word the president utters as you are.
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