As in the past, the novelty of the strongman’s approach to politics threw even seasoned observers off course. President George W. Bush had no frame of reference for Trump’s 2017 inaugural address and described it as “weird shit,” although it was perfectly normal in the context of authoritarian history. Like Italians and Germans in the 1920s and 1930s and some Chileans after the 1973 coup, many Americans believed that the man espousing lies and extremist politics would calm down and abide by democratic norms and institutions once he took power.
