As Donald Trump's GOP nomination begins to look an almost certainly, he's not making any attempt to hide that he's "increasingly embracing autocratic language and ideas," columnist Robin Abcarian writes in The Los Angeles Times.
But the big problem, she said, comes from the people who brushing that off as "Trump being Trump."
Abcarian contends that anyone not alarmed by Trump's rhetoric is either not paying attention or doesn't know a threat when they see one. She cites The Atlantic's Peter Wehner, who called Trump an “institutional arsonist" and who wrote last week that those who claim to follow Jesus continue to show their hypocrisy by supporting a man "whose cruel ethic has always been antithetical to Jesus’s."
The problem with Trump's supporters is that they think his racism and contempt for the rule of law are just what America needs, she said.
Also read: 'Incredibly stupid campaign': Analyst sees Trump blowing lead by repeating past mistakes
Also at fault are Trump's "Republican collaborators," who Abcarian says are "deeply implicated in his antidemocratic plans."
"One flank is dedicated to rewriting the history of Jan. 6, the day that violent insurrectionists failed to thwart the results of the 2020 presidential election. A second is devoted to maintaining the fiction that the election was stolen from Trump," she writes.
Early on, Abcarian says Trump's supporters said his extremist rhetoric was not meant to be taken literally.
"If you bought that line, you were foolish."
Read the full op-ed at The Los Angeles Times.
