Quotation of the Day

I

n his blithe assertions that he can solve any problem just by the sheer might and glory of his presence, Donald Trump is no aberration. He’s the logical culmination of this trend. Really, how is curing diabetes with cinnamon, or building your own solar panels in your garage, any different from building a big, beautiful border wall and making Mexico pay for it? They may differ in scale, but all these ideas trade off the fantasy that there are easy, one-size-fits-all solutions to big, complex problems.

The Republican establishment has worked hard for a generation to foster this way of thinking, teaching their voters to scorn complexity and distrust expertise. Whether it’s ending teen pregnancy and STDs by just telling kids not to have sex, or ending crime and violence by bringing back prayer in schools, or curing poverty by pushing poor people into marriage, or unleashing massive economic growth simply by cutting taxes on the super-rich—all these ideas are conventionally respectable, but they partake of the same mode of magical, unicausal thinking. In exploiting this mindset, Trump is merely walking through a door that generations of GOP leaders have left wide open.—Adam Lee

[“How the Right-Wing Scam Economy Created Donald Trump,” Daylight Atheism, 23 March 2016]