"Trump, as I have argued, only became a successful businessman, a tv celebrity, and a presidential candidate because of the bankruptcy of our institutions and values..." DK
My view is that Trump represents one example of the full flowering of human types associated with our institutions and values, such as they are and always were.
Our institutions and values have not suddenly become bankrupt. They have essentially always been more or less the same.
The Civil War did, however, increase the power of the federal government, at a cost far greater than the benefit; WWII had a similar impact, but that is all, structurally and theoretically.
Otherwise, institutions and values have remained remarkably the same in my judgment.
If they seem suddenly bankrupt only now, then perhaps they were actually bankrupt from the beginning, really.
Most public figures, Trump no less than, say, Samantha Power, Lincoln, or George Wallace, Jackson or Kennedy, represent types that emerged, readily recognizable, from the beginning of the republic, really.
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