Among the most important questions in America today is whether Trump is the cause or the symptom. I've long felt that Trump - as a good conman salesman - is naturally adept at telling an audience what they want to hear. That has always been the juice in his rallies, both for him and his cultists. He didn't create Trumpism, like everything else he's associated with, he merely rebranded it with his name on it.
Trump's recent foray into recommending the vaccine is another brick in the wall supporting the symptom. Trump bears almost no responsibility for "Operation Warp Speed" but at least he didn't actively subvert it while in office. Since his defeat, he and all Republicans have moved to an actively supportive of Covid position. His break with that might be the realization that the unvaccinated - Republican voters - are the ones who are dying.
That they are now fracturing again is telling. The literally mentally ill wing of Trumpist politics - the QAnon nutters, the Flat Earthers, etc - cannot brook reality permeating their perfervid worldview.
Trump mainstreamed this insanity, but he didn't cause it. It's always been there, but Trump and the internet brought them together and gave them impetus. And we are paying the price for that.
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