America also destabilized Muslim countries. Would those countries have collapsed without American help? I don't know the answer to that, but we (America) have a long history of intervention in Middle Eastern affairs (with lots of help from the Brits), too.

I had previously thought that those circumstances *possibly* made a difference. No longer.

Here's why.

I recently was on a Zoom call with a bunch of white Georgia construction workers. It was the day after the attack on the Capitol. The call started with several of the guys ranting about how unfair the media was being about the event.

I left the call with my mouth hanging open. Nothing the moderator of the call said to them in an attempt to dissuade them had any effect. You could almost, from a physical and visceral standpoint, see the argument bounce off a wall.

I won't go into details of these Trumpsters' arguments other than to say they parroted all the stuff you see coming out of Trump's tweets.

I felt a lot more dispirited by that call than I did by the actual attack on the Capitol Building, and that's saying a lot.