“Trump broke us,” people say. Indeed. We used to talk about ideas, rules, positions, consequences. Now we talk about him. Previous generations argued about slavery or tariffs or free silver or the interstate commerce clause. We argue about Donald Trump. And even when we don’t, we end up referring to him obliquely, as if he were the Earth’s core. “What do you think of the governor of Maryland?” someone will ask, and, immediately, it’s back to Trump. What do you think of the decision in Dobbs? Because, you see, Trump did that — or didn’t do that, if you prefer. Nothing can ever be about what it’s actually about; it has to be about Donald Trump. A few years ago, someone told me that my opposition to Trump’s position on American libel law was “actually” driven by my snobbish dislike of his “Queens accent.” Me! A guy who was born in rural England. Does that really seem likely? Never mind.

The whole thing has become disastrously totalitarian. People who disagreed with a lot of Trump’s political positions now pretend to support them, lest their dissent be cast as disloyalty to the man himself. People who once agreed strongly with the positions that Trump chose to adopt now oppose them vehemently, lest they be accused of alignment with the man himself. During the Trump administration, I was frequently asked by the president’s supporters whether I had yet clambered aboard “the Trump train.” I had no idea what that meant. A blood oath? Fealty? An agreement to switch off my brain? All three, I now see. A similar trend is developing among my progressive friends, who have started insisting that I must “denounce” any politician in America whom they consider to be insufficiently hostile to Donald Trump. No, thank you. I don’t think I will.