The useful idiots are falling by the wayside. First came a few corporate big shots, and then some more, and then many, many more. Princes of Wall Street, richer and more important than any chief executive, also left, and then Julius Krein, a conservative intellectual and digital pamphleteer, retracted his support of President Trump in a New York Times op-ed and inevitably was hailed as a political Rip Van Winkle who had just woken up. He and the others slept too long.
They have done their damage. Trump is in the White House, fulminating on Twitter, messing up foreign policy, mistaking critics for enemies, refusing to immediately and unequivocally condemn neo-Nazis, racists and other assorted goons — and, in general, failing to provide the nation with a scintilla of moral leadership. This will last until it can’t any longer. There is only so much chaos a nation can stand.
...
Trump’s presidency will fail. Just don’t ask me how and when. It will collapse because at its center is a hollow man, lacking ballast, whose chaos cannot be contained. In the meantime, those who supported him then but have now recanted need to consider what steered them so wrong. What compelled them to support a man whose ignorance, selfishness, egomania and abysmal character were so clear? Was it their lust for deregulation, lower taxes and a Wagnerian end to the Obama era? They slept — but it was our nightmare.