My standing opinion of him is that he got elected by tapping into, normalizing, and emboldening the worst sentiments of his base- mostly whites, but, anecdotally speaking, also to a shocking amount of Hispanics.

People tell me that he didn't normalize anything, that this sort of racism has always been there, and I disagree with that.

This racism has always been there, but in my life time, I have not seen it this bold, this open, by so many people. The quiet parts are said out loud, and nobody is looking around the corner first. That doesn't make the racism itself any better or worse, but I do think that the brazen displays that are given in his name are indicative of a "green light", so to speak, and that's what I mean by "normalize".

The more he escapes real consequences, the more his base believes that the same applies to them- and it has. Thus, they are emboldened.

His name is, pun unintended but all too appropriate, their trump card. He's as close to a religious figure as I've ever seen a politician, literally worshiped by his base. The people who stormed the Capitol did so for him, in his name, and at his call.

He was, they thought, their permission slip. Not even a get out of jail free card, because it's clear that these people were convinced going in that jail wasn't even a remote possibility.

He has undermined the press to a degree I can't recall happening in my lifetime.

He made "alternative facts" acceptable, and he's essentially the patron saint of conspiracy theorists and snake oil salesmen all across this country. Q*** was a LARP that succeeded primarily due to the blind hero worship of this guy.

Yeah, mental illness, yeah, lack of education, etc- but these are things he catered too. Remember, he loves the uneducated.

Q*** also succeeded in part due to the quarantines due to the pandemic- the length and depth of which he is directly responsible for.

He's also undermined the integrity of elections to a frightening degree, and while we got a W this election with the Pres and the Senate, we got saddled with some of his truly horrifying sycophants in the process.

I think this is so deeply rooted that it's reinvigorated the Deplorables to the point where the prior GOP basket looks downright acceptable by comparison- but only by comparison.

So even with the GOP being somewhat split, they're still the same basket of deplorables. The difference is, that basket is now a bag of bad apples, rotten apples, fermenting pruno, and the MAGAts that have been energized by it all. It's still the same old devils, except the demons have gotten some upgrades.

And even with Orange losing his ass over and over and over and over and over again, he still presents a serious threat- because the people who had the power to shut him down for real not only refused to do so, they straight up aided and abetted- even after they damn near got killed by his insurrection attempt.

His Tinfoil Army, when he lost, barely waivered. Most of them just shifted the goalpost. And when March 4th passes and Orange STILL isn't the president, they'll just shift again.

That brand of deplorable has illustrated time and again that they don't die. They just get worse.

This motherfucker is on some supervillain shit.

I don't think this just fades away. I think we're a long, hard road away from him or his influence going anywhere.