The Flawed Demagogue

Trump has been rightly praised as a gifted demagogue. He has exhibited astonishing brilliance in this art, but he has a remarkable flaw that may result in his undoing. He is incapable of faking being a decent person. His psyche is so parched that he can’t generate crocodile tears, much less those characteristic of the vast majority of humans. What New York Times columnist Roger Cohen refers to as Trump’s “eerie inhumanity” is so manifest that one must suppose that those who support his reelection are morally compromised as well. If this flaw isn’t sufficient to bring about Trump’s downfall in November, it will signal that our country is deeply flawed itself.