Post-trump political gurus and shills were hard at work this morning: the two Brooks of the NYT, both self-defined moralists who are busily spending their time separating and protecting the “conservative movement” from the crowds. They are revolted by Trump’s “grabbing”, mud-slinging, and total lack of civility. It allows them to talk up the soft side of conservatives: a social concern, a sense of connectedness and responsibility, even compassion for the poor (in moderation). This goes with systematic criticism (silence at best) of the Affordable Care Act—their own production—, no raise or adjustment of minimum salary, all out globalization, privatization of education by vouchers (at best), systematic rewarding of capital in all forms, and destruction of any semblance of fairness in the tax system as well as of any social goal in it, aggressive foreign policy without political aims, simply a machinery that provides rich contracts to armament, electronic, and surveillance industries.

These opinion writers feel pressure to externalize Trump as a “pityable” object beyond redemption. How much easier it is to treat Trump as a deranged outlyer in the capitalist system than recognize the much deeper and broader corrosion that threatens to engulf everyone. It is the profit making at the heart of capitalism that wrecks civil society and one of its expressions, civility. To quote a comment on David Brooks’ opinion article:

Trump is a sort of human embodiment of an un-parented, unregulated free market capitalism that runs over everything in its way, externalizes costs to everyone else and makes a “killing” for its practitioners.

Trump is not a lonely, single narcissist, but the truth of our conquering capitalistic culture. Attempts to paint this culture as potentially humane and compassionate are illusions if not lies. What will happen in the next election cycle, four or eight years from now, when much worse and organized than Trump may surface? As another comment says:

This election shows just how close we are to a fascist government in this country, and it will not take much to bring it into being, a bad down-turn in the economy and the right demagogue and we’ll be on our way.