Getting rid of Trump will not stop the epidemic. To fully develop the antibodies that will drive this contagion out of the body politic once and for all, it must be allowed to fully run its course. Only by pushing to the very brink of death can we be assured this pestilence will not flare up again.

The political philosophies that led up to Trump; the racism, nationalism, nativism, populism, chauvinism, militarism, and religious and economic fundamentalism, have to bring us to the point of death before we finally understand how destructive they are to human freedom. And the biggest ism of all is fascism, by whatever name it is currently disguised.

This is what was required in Germany and Japan after the War and the Allied Occupation. Those societies almost collapsed before the major roots of these anti-human ideologies were finally yanked out and recognized by those peoples as the malignant growths they really were. Russia and China never successfully made the transition after the Cold War. They eventually relapsed into the same disease, with the same symptoms, just a different diagnosis.

Hopefully, war and occupation will not be necessary here--you could even argue that our occupation is underway right now. But we must prepare ourselves for a long period of national suffering before this plague finally runs its course.

Feed a cold and starve a fever. There is no magic medicine, and we have no guarantee we will survive.