Summoning America's Demons

The last week of October was a traumatic one. An attack on a church full of black parishioners was narrowly thwarted, forcing the gunman to make do with the murder two African-Americans outside a convenience store. A deranged pro-Trump drifter executed a hapless plot to bomb and terrorize Democratic officials, officeholders, and donors. And an anti-Semite executed the worst mass murder of American Jews in history at a synagogue in Pittsburgh.

Observers cannot help but see our dysfunctional political culture reflected in these events, and they’re correct. But history did not begin yesterday. America’s influencers and elites spent the better part of a decade summoning up forces they could not control. The demons they aroused are upon us now.