We might have learned from 9/11, for it showed us how naive, passive, and weak we had become. Politicians had for years been alternately frightening us with threats of foreign attack and assuring us that we were absolutely safe, and we believed them on both counts. In our panicked reaction to 9/11 we were ready to surrender our rights, to make believe that George W. Bush was competent, to wink at atrocities committed by a lawless government in our name, and to be abused by the extravagant but useless airport routines of the Transport Security Administration.

We might have learned from the election of Donald Trump and the complete moral bankruptcy of the Republican Party. But here, after eight plus years we are tolerating the same crimes and anti-democratic behaviors. The Trump Experience has shown us how ignorant, gullible, mindlessly angry, void of principles, racist, misogynist, and just plain foolish we are.

The hostile reaction to the COVID19 vaccines is a legacy from the Trump years. The self-destructive rejection of the vaccine, instigated by Trump, embraced by the Trump base, and exploited by a throng of self-promoting politicians tells us that during the Trump years many Americans have regressed from a lingering adolescence to unembarrassed childishness.