I knew it was only a matter of time before democracy would hand us a truly incompetent or unprincipled President, perhaps even a deluded or deranged one. Sooner or later, our luck would run out and we’d get a real madman, or a monster. It’s just the roll of the dice, it has nothing to do with ideology, it could just as easily have turned out to be a Democrat as a Republican.

But I always had the confidence that eventually the nation would come to its senses and get rid of him, either by impeachment, the 25th amendment or by arising in a bipartisan wave of ridicule and contempt that would force the man to resign or barricade himself in the White House. Even if it didn’t come to that, the Congress and the courts would simply refuse to cooperate with him and his agenda, and he would finish out his first and only term a powerless drone in the Oval Office, a ceremonial figurehead with no real power or influence. And competent and honorable men would refuse appointments to positions in his administration.

Any country can get a Hitler or a Stalin. Dictators can place themselves in power with bayonets, or by cleverly outmaneuvering their political opposition and national institutions. Sometimes they just rush in and fill a vacuum left by war or civil collapse, or economic crisis. But America has checks and balances, America has level-headed and basically decent people who are aware of their shortcomings and try their best to overcome them. Americans of both parties would eventually see the necessity of coming together and isolating and ignoring a fool or a villain, or a sick man. Surely the Founders must have foreseen this, instituted mechanisms that would inoculate the body politic against this sort of infection. Surely our history and experience would have prepared us for this. Surely no American political faction or philosophy could arise so selfishly determined to push its program through that it would tolerate a man like this simply because he promised to help them do so.

I can understand that special circumstances could get a man like this elected, but I simply cannot understand how this country could produce so many people willing to follow him simply because he pandered to their fantasies and prejudices.

Trump is a one-off. By himself, he means nothing. But I am truly ashamed at how many of my countrymen still are willing to put up with him; to look the other way and make excuses for him, or simply to remain silent until he gets them what they want. I am truly ashamed of my country.