Wherever America is going, the Republican Party will get there first.

Its been an extraordinary day. First came the astonishing spectacle of last night’s Republican debate. This morning it was Marco Rubio hamming it up, addressing his supporters. And this evening, the amazing sight and sound of Chris Christie endorsing the Trump candidacy.

But then, immediately after, came the piece de resistance: Donald Trump speaking to his cheering followers, with yet more insults for Rubio, attacks on the media in general and the NY Times in particular, and even some slurs directed at a demonstrator in the audience, and the camera crews filming the action.

It was like watching those grainy black and white films of Hitler addressing a crowd; the gestures, the facial contortions, the emotional and sarcastic/dismissive/insulting delivery, complete with eyerolls, smirks, mugging and grimaces and dramatic gestures. Except it was in color and High Definition, and I could understand every word of what was being said.

This is beyond politics, beyond ideology, way outside even any question of culture or philosophy. It is not a partisan comment to observe that these people are simply vulgar brutes, uncultured savages. And not just them, but the cheering mob that egged them on, that loved every minute of the show.

Then again, it would be too easy to simply dismiss these politicians as grotesque slobs. I suspect they are perfectly capable of understanding what they are doing, and it is no accident, no intellectual or moral shortcoming on their part. No, this is deliberate and calculated. They know exactly what they are doing. They have judged their audience and are giving them exactly what they want. People in other countries are watching this on their TV too, and asking themselves “What is going on in America?” No doubt, they have that same uneasy feeling of deja vu I am experiencing: its too much like watching the History Channel.

I fear that as a people we’ve hit some kind of inflection point; it may not be immediately obvious, but one where the second or third derivative goes to zero and the function subtly unfolds in some unexpected new direction, some terrible new way.