Mountebanks, grifters and Trumpism

In an interesting essay in the NYT today, Rick Perlstein, who has chronicled the rise and fall of Richard Nixon, makes the point that historians by and large did not anticipate the rise of Trump and his connection to American conservatism.  In a long and sometimes windy dissertation, Perlstein traces the rise of conservatism after WW2 culminating in the election of Ronald Reagan, the genial showman who was dedicated to dismantling the New Deal and constructing a government by plutocrats for plutocrats.  Perlstein also detours into the sordid history of racism and intolerance embraced by the republican party as it has devolved into a party of white nationalism.  He concludes with reference to the grifters who prey on this stew of American intolerance of the "other" to sell everything from survival supplies and gold to miracle cures.  It is a sorry history that implicates our national conscience.