Unseating demagogues using scientific reason 29 Jan 2021 Tribune News Service As we turn the page to new political leadership, it will be tempting to treat what happened in the past four years as a bad dream. We can’t allow that to happen. Our four-year exposure to an increasingly viral demagoguery demonstrates that those who seek power by inflaming prejudices and rejecting fact and reason pose an existential danger to our democracy. The insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6 confirmed this for many people, but in truth it was clear all along — and should have been clear to every one of us by Feb. 27, 2020. That was the day that Donald Trump promised not just a speedy resolution to the COVID-19 crisis, but a magical one. “One day, it is like a miracle,” he said. “It will disappear.”