Provoke Him but Protect Us

The most disturbing pattern I see in the Trump era is anti-Trumpers recognizing a dire need for Trump's circle to at least try to moderate and restrain him....while demanding that everyone in his midst bitterly renounce him and walk away. The contradiction hits me like a migraine.

I suppose their rationality recognizes the need to take every possible step to avert apocalypse, while their emotionality thirsts to see him provoked, trolled, and isolated to the brink of apocalypse. Hatred, as usual, trumps rationality.

This is the lesson for future historians. This is the only truly surprising element.


Normally I make an effort to empathize with irrationality. But I can't excuse the application of indulgent emotionality in such dangerous circumstances. I suppose the Taoists were right; extreme begets extreme (or, as I keep repeating, "Will we human beings ever learn to react to extremism with enlightened moderation rather than with reciprocal extremism?"). Put a demented toddler in charge, and opposition will inevitably take on the characteristics of demented toddlers.