“We need to stop believe or deluding ourselves that bad things can’t happen- that people won’t do bad things. Because they will and they do.” Just minutes into Robert Kegan’s speech, he directly outlined the democracy as a cause of violence and the January 6^th attacks.

Kegan spends many minutes explaining how bad Trump was for democracy. He stated Trump’s attempt to threaten Georgia’s secretary of state to “find votes” that show he won, support for Pence to overturn the election, and how he was and still is a narcissist that can command the distrust and anger of the American public. More importantly, he discussed the capacity of the American people to do what they say, in this case, try to overturn the election. He compared this to the war in Ukraine in which Putin had the means to go to war, said he would go to war, and then invaded Ukraine. He finalizes his point that next election, in which Trump is likely to be the Republican nominee, he hopes people will realize that Trump is bad for democracy and there are some similarities between the attack on the capital on January 6^th and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

I want to reflect on how Trump took control of the American public. Kegan said his narcissism made him the best candidate for angry people. I agree that is what brought people in and that is what kept people coming back. I believe that Trump is more like a clown a circus than a former president in that he desires that people look at him, listen to him, and come back. He has done that to such a magnitude that I believe a couple years from now, studies will be done on how Trump marketed himself and he will be found in marketing textbooks. Once people realized that he was going to fight for the selfish needs of himself and thus, the selfish needs of Americans, people were attracted to him. This is at the expense of the American morals and the rise of bigotry in many forms- xenophobia, racism, sexism to name a few. Essentially, Trump was able to get millions of people who otherwise would not be as publicly bigoted to protect bigots such as stand up for white supremacists.

The second part I want to comment on is Trump’s return as a candidate that is likely to happen for the 2024 presidential election. Most political scholars agree that Trump will be the Republican candidate. However, this time will be different as there will be no more “I didn’t know what he’s like” from his allies. His advisors will likely be filled with “yes men” agreeing with everything he says with nobody able to persuade him of anything else. This is extremely dangerous to our democracy. On many occasions following the 2016 election, Trump said that if he had lost, he would not have accepted the result. Then after the 2020 election, he was actively trying to overturn the votes of millions of people. If he were elected back to office, my worry would be how much systematic damage could he do to democracy with nobody telling him he cannot do that. Maybe Republican Congressmen and Congresswomen will come to their senses, but that is unlikely to ever happen as they currently won’t speak out against him even though he isn’t in office.