Donald Trump has said that he loves ill-educated people. And well he might, since they form part of the bedrock of the coalition that gave him the Republican presidential coalition. At this moment, two sayings make a relevant political point: (1) There is nothing more dangerous than ignorance in action; (2) From one of my few heroes, Supreme Court Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935): “When the ignorant are taught to doubt, they do not know what safely they may believe.”
The often perverse dynamics of this weird election have their origin as a byproduct of the general legitimacy crisis of the entire American regime order. There has always lurked – usually well concealed behind the façade of normality – an embedded instability in American politics. This might be thought of as a potential for large-scale “jumping overboard” toward right-wing extremist political movements. CONT.
Walter Dean Burnham (UT Austin), USApp