I think they DO have the same problem. And years from now, when we, and the historians, reminisce about the Trump years, those people will still be all around us, intact. We used to have this smug sense of superiority about how the Germans, such a cultured and sophisticated people, such a civilized nation, fell for Hitler, as if we would never let that happen here. Well, we were dead wrong.

People used to say; “If it could happen in Germany, it could happen anywhere.” Now they’re going to be substituting “America” in that sentence.

Mrs. P. and I got burned by a person like this. We had never really trusted her, but we had to associate with her. What she did to my wife was out of the blue, horridly timed, and just awful. Wrecked our lives and relationships with others for years. We tried to warn others but they’d roll their eyes or tell us we were the crazy ones. When she found out we were warning people, that just upped her smear campaign. Eventually, she wound up fucking with the people we had warned. Some of them now, when the situation comes up in conversation, refuse to talk about it or even mention her name. She gets referred to as “She that we name not.”

My point was that this is what make people like “He that I name not” so dangerous is that people either don’t see the pathology, or they ignore it, or they try to ride it for their own gain, or they like it. Because maybe they have the same problem.

But I must point out once again that the real issue here is not that we have a sociopathic President. The true horror is how many of our fellow Americans find this a good thing. And even among those who readily agree with the Schwartz assessment there seems to be a substantial number of our fellow citizens who are willing to tolerate this behavior because it coincides with their ideological goals.

We have a diseased President, but he is not our problem; a certain proportion of any population will suffer from this disorder, so it follows that a certain proportion of our leaders will also suffer from it. The American tragedy is that so many of us are willing, and even eager, to tolerate it. Even if Donald Trump were to leave the Presidency tomorrow, his followers and supporters would still be with us, undeterred and and clearly ready to replace the man with someone just like him. About a quarter to a third of the American people are either just like Trump, or simply don’t care what he does as long as he gives them what they want.

This is what fills me with despair.