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Todd R. Nelson is a retired educator and writer.
In her opinion column in the Washington Post last week, Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney writes: “We Republicans need to stand for genuinely conservative principles, and steer away from the dangerous and anti-democratic Trump cult of personality.”
I call it a Ponzi scheme, and thank Cheney for fending off a perilous investment in falsehood. She’s laid her career on the line and will surely be called a heretic for it.
A Ponzi scheme depends on a lie. “Your capital investment is safe and will perform beyond your wildest dreams. Just believe,” says the huckster. The fantasy riches are always too good to be true. So it is with Donald Trump’s Ponzi scheme for American Greatness still being foisted on the American people.
Instead of an investment of money, the capital here is trust and belief in an alternate reality, a lie about what constitutes American democracy. Or, as Cheney writes, “Trump is seeking to unravel critical elements of our constitutional structure that make democracy work — confidence in the result of elections and the rule of law. No other American president has ever done this.”
It started with Make America Great Again. America did not need saving, when Trump descended the escalator in his…
