It can be hard to see what’s in front of you — especially when you’re struggling not to see it.
SACRAMENTO >> After watching Wednesday’s otherworldly events — a violent seize of the United States Capitol by pro-Trump mobs who were incited by the president — I was left thinking of a quotation from “1984” and “Animal Farm” author George Orwell: “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.” That should be the enduring slogan of the Trump era. We’ve all seen what Donald Trump was about long before he entered politics — and yet large swaths of the Republican Party and public have struggled to reckon with the evidence that was right in front of their noses. You know — his habit of stiffing contractors, bankruptcies, litigiousness, myriad sexual-assault allegations and abuse of eminent domain. Even the president’s sycophants have gone on the record in the past attesting to his demagoguery and misshapen character. “I think he’s a kook. I think he’s crazy. I think he’s unfit for office,” said U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, before he decided to avert his eyes. I saw the same dramatic change unfold among many of my conservative allies. I likened it to “The Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” where extraterrestrials showered Earth with plant pods that grew human replicas. The pod opens and suddenly your wife looks the same, but is now an alien. Friends would express the same reservations I had about Trump — and then one day the pod would open and they were all in. It was one thing to jump on the Trump train during the 2016 election before his political approach was entirely clear — and given that his opponent was unlikable Hillary Clinton. After four years of his incessant lies, cruelty, conspiracy mongering, ad hominem attacks and various authoritarian musings, one could only not see it by deliberate choice.
