What was the moment for you that crystallized your explanation of Trump's policies and his appeal?

So the title of the book, which takes its title from a column that I wrote in 2018.

This is Adam Cerwer.

Was, you know, approximately inspired by, you know, the first two years of the Trump presidency,

but also by this particular event, which was a rally that was being held during the

Brett Kavanaugh hearings.

Judge Kavanaugh, we welcome you. Are you ready?

After the testimony by Christine Blasiford,

we met she accused Brett Kavanaugh and a child's boyfriend of sexually assaulting her when they were all teenagers.

What is the strongest memory you have?

Strongest memory of the incident, something that you cannot forget. Take whatever time you need.

And one of the more compelling aspects of her testimony was when she talked about the laughter being,

as she put it, indelible on the hippocampus.

The hippocampus is the laughter, the the aperious laughter between the two,

and they're having fun at my expense.

That resonated because a lot of people, you know, and you have a traumatic memory,

there are certain, you know, strange details about that memory that stick in your brain.

And what struck me about the rally that followed that was not simply that Donald Trump was saying that,

you know, Kavanaugh was innocent and that Blasiford was lying, which, you know, of course, he was going

to say, but that he specifically held her up for ridicule.

What he's going through 36 years ago, this happened.

He had sort of heard her testimony and identified this vulnerability that she had expressed in her

...