Henry Abraham via Substack:

‘What remains a mystery to me, though, is why Americans aren’t angrier over Trump’s crimes and misdemeanors. Have we forgotten our values of honesty, compassion, and creativity? Hasn’t anyone noticed that a third of the White House has been demolished? For a ballroom-bunker? Is patriotism only for “suckers and losers”? Are we ready to throw in the towel defending the rights of women, immigrants, people of color, and gays? Have we forgotten that we are “created equal and endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights”? What’s wrong with this picture and how did it get that way?

In 1941 the jurist Ernst Fraenkel who had fled Nazi Germany wrote a seminal book, The Dual State, in which he described two forms of government that could exist side by side. The first he called “the prerogative state,” and the second, “the normative state.” The first was the government that did whatever it wanted. The second was bound by the rule of law. The first is Donald Trump ignoring the birthright decision of the Supreme Court, or ICE agent Jonathan Ross killing Renee Good in Minneapolis without accountability. The normative state does what the law directs. The prerogative state does what it wants.

Americans live in both states, but unless the prerogative one affects us, we go about our business living under the illusion that our state is entirely “normative.” The prerogative Trump incinerates 300 school children on the first day of the Iran war, and we go out that evening for ice cream. Our illusion of normality protects us from shame, guilt, and rage because Trump’s paranoia, sadism, and slipping cognition don’t affect us personally. It’s time to shatter that illusion…’