William Marvel: Preventive History

For years, we've been assailed with warnings that the United States is about to collapse into dictatorship through the despotic impulses of Donald Trump. The doomsayers have done little, so far, but damage their own credibility by crying wolf. If the object of their terror harbors the ambitions they insist, the distrust they have earned for themselves would make it easier for him.

I shared the qualms of many when Trump took office in 2017. Yet the world did not collapse, despite the immediate start of violent protests and "resistance," and there were even some aspects of his presidency that I appreciated. For all his blather about a "wall," for example, he did augment and support the Border Patrol enough to reduce illegal entries significantly. Vladimir Putin also seemed to share my concern about Trump's volatility, and I suspect it played a part in his hesitation to invade Ukraine.