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I caught up on the thread during my ban and I'm surprised that no one has mentioned this yet, the real reason why the Democrats hate him so much. It has nothing to do with rational reasons. Indeed, the dislike goes beyond any explanation rooted in logic. We must go back to more primal human urges to explain the vehemence of his opposition.
Trump has violated the sacredness of the republic and for that he can never be forgiven.
It is a cliche that the right wing never fails to bring up the Romans: I'm bringing up the Romans. As I understand it, republicanism in antiquity had a sacral, religious quality that continues on in all republics that followed in its mode: that elections were not just two wolves deciding on the sheep to eat today, but a duty before the gods themselves - that no matter how many maniacs and power-hungry warlords ascended into authority, the process itself was sacred. Long after elections became meaningless, people still became senators and consuls pretty much until the end of the Principate.
That is his crime: making a mockery of the goddess of Democracy, grabbing her by the hair and wooing her by force. Trump is a idolator in the temple of liberal democracy. He profanes the altars, the most sacred places... he rejects the authority of the institution itself. Those who fear him and hate him do so with the intensity one might reserve for the raper of one's virgin daughter.
That they themselves have abused the republic is no reason for sober self-reflection. That is in character for Optimates, to be hypocrites. It does not make what the Populares do any better but as HBO Rome so eloquently put it: "People want bread, not clean elections." All of the men of virtue and integrity are long gone: the last of the Americans perished from this world a hundred years ago.
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