American politics isn’t really about Great Men or Great Women leading from the top down. What the people want still matter. And if we fail to acknowledge that a hell of a lot of people in this country want some truly odious things we’re missing a big part of the picture.

Trumpism and all of the extremism that goes with it is not salient because Trump articulated a fascist agenda for the first time and convinced people to help him advance it. He and those around him recognized that there are millions upon millions of people in this country who already liked and wanted that stuff but who had no one speaking to them about it and expressing their agreement with it so plainly. Trump has harnessed a longstanding ugliness in this country. He’s given voice to the desires of the tens of millions of people who want to round up, brutalize, and deport immigrants. He’s given voice to the tens of millions of people who want women to be, for all practical purposes, the property of men. He’s given voice to the tens of millions of people who are just fine with abolishing democracy and instituting an authoritarian regime because they believe that regime will favor them and will punish those who they hate and they want punished.

Donald Trump, J.D. Vance and their ilk have not been successful because of their cunning. They have been successful because they tapped into something very real, very large, and very ugly in the American body politic. We spend all day talking tactics, candidates, and who has won the news cycle, but that basic fact has never changed.

In the course of all of the should-Biden-drop-out drama, people are already talking about the recriminations and cross-recriminations which will fly if Trump wins again in November. For me the larger, most disappointing thing — win or lose — will be the reminder that roughly 80 million voters WANT fascism. That they are OK with it. And that many of them will pursue violence if they don’t get it, even if it’s soundly defeated in an election.

That’s the problem America faces. And it’s bigger than all of the other problems we have.