How Trump is Dumbing Down his Opponents
as well as his followers, opines David Brooks:
This is Trump’s ultimate victory. Every argument on every topic is now all about him. Hating Trump together has become the ultimate bonding, attention-grabbing and profit-maximization mechanism for those of us in anti-Trump world. . . .
Most of this week’s argument about the Middle East wasn’t really about the Middle East. It was all narcissistically about ourselves! [related . . .] Democrats defend terrorists! Republicans are warmongers! Actual Iranians are just bit players in our imperialistic soap opera, the passive recipients of our greatness or perfidy.
Underneath the theatrical enmity Trump whips up, Brooks sees the left and right converging on an isolationist populism: “The real high-risk move is the one both parties are making together: that if we ignore the world it will ignore us. (It won’t.)”
Ambiance 
Polly said,
January 10, 2020 at 12:58 am
That article is interesting. And I think he’s right that people are so focused on hating or loving Trump, they don’t use their brains to think about the issues anymore.
Starting with the assumption that Trump is crazy, stupid and evil, anything he does will seem wrong. And starting with the assumption that he was sent by God, anything he does will seem perfect.
And if most of the country starts from one or the other of these assumptions, that means almost no one will have any chance of understanding what is going on.