But even beyond these narrow electoral concerns, Pelosi may grasp something dark but deeply true about the character of politics in this moment — something that more passionate partisans on her own side can’t seem to acknowledge or accept.
These partisans see Trump as so self-evidently awful that every time he commits some new outrage, they imagine that this time it will be different, this time people will finally turn against him. It never seems to happen, but that doesn’t change the dynamic. The impulse to “écrasez l’infâme” (crush the loathsome thing) is so powerful that the expectation returns over and over again.
The reason nothing fundamental ever changes is that each side in our politics is so deeply entrenched in its own construal of reality. If the anti-Trump side thinks the president is undeniably revolting — a toxin that will sink the whole system of American democracy if we don’t act to stop him — the right is divided. Some (Trump’s strongest supporters) think he can do no wrong. But many others are well aware that he’s corrupt. They just see the corruption as a slightly more egregious form of the debasement that pervades Washington and elite culture more broadly. From Congress and the executive branch to the mainstream media, the universities, Wall Street, and Hollywood, those who run the country rig the system to benefit themselves and try to conceal it beneath a cloak of high-minded BS. Trump might be a self-obsessed crook, but at least he doesn’t pretend to be anything better than a self-obsessed crook.
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