I just read that now. Its amazing, isn't it, how even an article supposedly about the limits of Trump's dangers ends up being about the belief that liberalism is too powerful and will face a backlash if it doesn't moderate itself? To come closer to the author's views, of course, but there's no ulterior motive!

The problem for many anti-Trump conservatives is that even they're part of the broader establishment that enabled Trump that thrived on and continues to thrive on the ludicrous notion that "liberalism", as defined by their latest pet peeve (socialism, cancel culture, race wars... take you pic) is too ascendant. They don't get that this is one of the foundational lies on which Trump has built his fantasy realm that has had multiple very real effects.

It comes from a complete blindness to what affects actual people. Douthat claims with apparent seriousness that Trump's biggest defiance of Congress is over funds for the border wall. What about the many many Congressional subpoenas his cronies ignored? The ludicrous Senate Impeachment "trial" where GOP senators were so scared of Trump they refused to let witnesses testify? Those weren't major examples of Trump defying Congress?

HE says, presumably with a straight face: "There is still no Trumpian equivalent of Bush’s antiterror and enhanced-interrogation innovations or Obama’s immigration gambit and unconstitutional Libyan war."

I'm left gaping at the sheer scale of ignorance displayed here. He doesn't see the massive amounts of absolutely fucked up shit the EPA has done as a policy power grab of staggering scale that's going to have implications for decades. And that is just one example.

He doesn't see these issues because to him, they aren't issues. And so he's blind to how negative the Trump presidency has been for this country, and for the world. And so he remained blind to the possibilities of January 6th.