We could’ve avoided President Donald Trump. Now, we must learn the lessons | Rebecca Solnit

There were hundreds of opportunities to stop the Republican demagogue. That should focus our minds as he takes the oath of office

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The road to President Trump was long and bumpy. There were many turns not taken, countless alternative routes that would have spared us this outcome. Instead, we kept going, corruption, infighting and sheer obliviousness stopping us changing course.

What could have been different? There are a thousand possibilities. You could start with the long decay of the US news media into a branch of the entertainment industry, primed to seize on Trump's celebrity. A wiser society would have demanded better, resisted more vocally, criticised more intelligently.