Bob Schwartz

If there was a time Trump had an overall vision for America—and given his intellectual limitations that may never have been—it isn’t any more. Yet he remains a popular figurehead, so that however disorganized and incomprehensible his speech and tactics seem, a number of people go along.

His circle includes a few different sorts of followers. Some believe in him as a leader. Some don’t believe in him, but believe that he will advance them, financially or politically. Some don’t believe in him, but believe he is a popular front man for a big cause: a legal, social and cultural revolution in America, a turnaround they believe has been too long in coming.

The revolutionaries don’t mind if there is negative focus on Trump. They don’t even mind the Epstein controversy. They encourage any distractions that don’t have to do with government and democracy, and there are plenty of those distractions. They might prefer Trump being generally more popular, but as long as he can keep Congress and the Supreme Court in line, as long as he controls the federal government, a beloved Trump isn’t necessary.

If the revolutionaries are astonished by anything, it is that they published their revolutionary playbook, chapter and verse, and somehow the constitutionalists, democrats, and advocates of social justice were unable to leverage it politically.

There is some increase in talk about authoritarianism and fascism in America, and that this is a culture war. It might be better to talk about a revolution by some very smart and serious revolutionaries. Trump seems a disorganized thinker and a compromised clown, albeit a supremely powerful one. But those behind him are organized, thoughtful and not at all clowns. We need to avoid distractions, including Trump, and keep our eyes on them.