I don’t mean to dump on Politico columnist Jack Shafer—well, actually, I do mean to dump on him, but I’d prefer not to admit it—but his latest column, Trump’s Alternate Reality Hits a New Crazy Note with Dr. Oz all too accurately describes the very real menace that Donald Trump presents to American democracy and all too painfully contrasts with a piece Jack wrote two years earlier, Why the Fear of Trump May Be Overblown, earnestly pooh-poohing the idea that Trump might actually manage to do all the awful things he says he’s going to do. I have banged on Jack before for being one of those sensible folk, like Dan Drezner and Ross Douthat and Colin Powell, who refuse to wrap their heads around the fact that Donald Trump means exactly what he says, because that would mean that America is in real trouble. Sorry, dudes. We are in real trouble. Don’t take Donald Trump “seriously”. Take him literally.
Welcome to reality, Jack. Sorry it’s so ugly.
Afterwords
How I wish it were 2010, when Jack worked for Slate and wrote funny articles about how the New York Times was trying to convince us that the America had gone coo-coo for terraria, based on evidence from that new contraption known as “Youtube”. Those were the days!
