This is the Most Important Post Ever!

How hyperbole distorts our thinking about our world and the character of the threats we face

Businessman yelling at himself. (iStock / Getty Images Plus)

I didn’t write my last couple of posts in order to make a coordinated point about the need for people to calm down about the threat posed by Donald Trump and right-wing populism more generally. But I’ve seen a few people describe them that way, and I suppose I can see why—though I prefer to put the point in slightly different terms.

Trump is bad. He’s an ignorant and embittered narcissist. He cares only about himself, with his interests defined in the narrowest and basest possible terms. He believes all aspirations toward impartiality, including the rule of law itself, are rhetorical cover for self-interested motives. He is a demagogue of rare and possibly even demonic talents who delights in pulling millions of his countrymen down to his level.

Believe me, I could go on. I hope it’s clear I consider Trump—and have always considered Trump—a terrible human being and a very dangerous force in our politics.

But that doesn’t mean him winning the presidency again in November would be a cataclysmic event—for the country, for American democracy, or for the world. It might be. I can imagine scenarios in which multiple things go wrong in such a way that several worst-case scenarios transpire and compound one another such that democracy is snuffed out, a hot civil war breaks out, or World War III gets going with an impulsive, incontinent, hot-headed moron in the Oval Office.

But I don’t consider any of those scenarios especially likely. They’re tail-end possibilities—and quite far out on the tail.

Far more likely is a lot of bad stuff—policies enacted that harm people, the economy, America’s standing in the world, and our country’s civic life and political processes. The most likely worst-case scenario probably involves a lot of unrest (protests, looting, riots) that Trump tries to put down with martial law facilitated by the Insurrection Act. That would be bad. But it wouldn’t make America Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union—yes, even if Trump attempted to use all of that as a pretext to delay or cancel the 2028 election. Bad? Yes, horrible. But as I said toward the end of my previous post, Trump isn’t going to live forever. He will die (maybe before the last, terrible scenario could unfold). There will be an America After Trump.

I say all of this not because I want to turn this newsletter into a place for brooding on the difference between realistic and unrealistic worst-case scenarios for the United States under a possible second Trump administration. I say it to make a point about the importance of rendering precise, accurate judgments about what’s happening and what’s likely to happen in our country in the near future.

An Age of Hyperbole

We live at a moment of intense, pervasive hyperbole. Our public life is clamorous, with various people and parties shouting about multiple, contradictory crises and emergencies. It often feels like the only way to be heard above the din or gain attention from our fellow citizens in our digital agora is by figuratively (or literally) screaming. But of course each scream makes the din louder.

Then there are the incentives of media companies, politicians, and activists, each of whom also needs a way to get people’s attention and incentivize them to click on the story, hit the “donate” button, or “like” and share the post. The result is journalism and political activity that contributes mainly to amping people up by hyping dangers, threats, and declarations of imminent catastrophe.

The effects can be seen all around us.