A documentary on the New Testament that I was watching a few years ago made the point that there was no real documentary or archaeological evidence to support the account in the Gospel of Matthew regarding the Massacre of the Innocents. The commentators acknowledged, however, that the story couldn’t be completely written off, because the record showed that Herod was perfectly capable of ordering the massacre.
I think about this frequently when I project the path of Trump 2.0. I don’t know for certain that Trump would use his emergency powers and his control of the military to destroy liberal democracy in America. The likelihood is that he won’t try to send me and other people who despise him to a concentration camp. The one thing I can’t say, however, is that he is incapable of it. In addition, there will be no adults in the room to discourage him this time around, and he now knows there will be no legal consequences for him if he acts illegally. We will all be living normal lives purely at his sufferance.
That’s why I will vote for Biden if he is my only plausible alternative in November even though I have grave doubts about his ability to do the job. What else can I do? It’s literally a matter of life or death.