Trump as seen in 2016 and in 2022

Today, in another of her searing columns in the New York Times, Maureen Dowd distills the progression of our general understandung of Trump over the past six years. In 2016, he appeared to be “a bloviating buffoon who stumbled into the presidency.” Since then, he has been revealed to be “a callous monster.” It’s not the existence of a single abominable human being that is the great national tragedy, it’s the abominable adoption of his ethos by the vast majority of Republicans and large segments of the population.