The Plot against America

Just as Vladimir Putin did not personally give the order to poison Alexei Navalny, Donald Trump did not arm the far-right militiamen who planned to kidnap the governor of Michigan in order to “prosecute” her and spark a civil war. He did not arm them but, like Putin, he created an atmosphere that allowed them to think that this was a legitimate, if not reasonable goal.

Domestic terrorism in the United States is a longstanding affair that far predates Trump’s election. But when a sitting president incites rebellion against government authorities which are politically hostile to him; when, in the middle of a lockdown, he calls to “LIBERATE MICHIGAN” in an uppercase tweet, a new line has been crossed. And when this same president discredits the electoral process, the primary foundation of a democracy, as he relentlessly does, then the world is turned upside down.

Indeed, Trump is fueling this plot against America which he claims to denounce and of which he is in fact one of the main instigators. He forages in the wounds of society to exude its bile.

Lying and conspiracy are just two of the many udders of Trumpism, but these two nurse the worst impulses of a fractured nation. They nourish a collective paranoia that turns into hysteria among some citizens, convinced that a civil war is desirable and inevitable.

That certainty is no longer only that of a marginalized and folkloric America in which a few fanatics, representing only themselves, march in arms behind a Nazi or Confederate flag. It’s something else, something more profound, and questions the foundation on which the very balance of the nation rests. This is a real and tangible threat. This is an immediate danger.