By Bob Quarteroni

"The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots."

-- H. L. Mencken

While it sounds harsh, it is the essence of Donald Trump and his attraction to his millions of followers, who seek easy answers to complex questions, banalities instead of complexities, and who direct a whole lot of hate at a whole lot of people.

Bob Quarteroni (PennLive file)

In other words, Trump is the almost perfect avatar of a demagogue, a rabble-rouser who knows the easiest way to appeal to people is to tell them what they want to hear, to feed into their fear of the "others," whether that's Muslims, Mexicans, judges, war heroes or even Democrats.

His crowd's lusty chants of "lock her up" whenever Trump mentions "Crooked Hilary" is a spooky sight in a politics arguably more polarized, angry, divisive and plain scary than it's ever been.

Which is why so many of us tremble as we watch, slack-jawed, his attempts to rabble rouse his way to political power. And that's coming scarily close now that the party of Lincoln has - inconceivably - selected him as their standard bearer.

And since his opponent, Hilary Clinton, is so unpopular - though still about a million times more politically acceptable than Trump - it only requires something like Julian Assange's Wikileaks to divulge some data that proves she crossed the legal line with her private email server to potentially hand the presidency to Trump, and all that entails.

And all that entails scares me to the depths of whatever passes for my soul.

I seriously believe that his election could plunge us into a civil war, or - through his bizarre international predilections - into a new world war.

And if things don't get that bad, I truly believe you'd see a society so riven, so torn apart, so divided that our precious but fragile democracy might not survive.

As John Adams said, "The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing....Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself."

And Trump doesn't act alone. He is assisted by those who know better, who understand completely how dangerous Trump is, but who do nothing about it.

The head of this band of Pontius Pilates, the leaders of the Republican Party - the Paul Ryans, Mitch McConnells, John McCains - and all their brothers and sisters in Congress who remain silent -- are doing the devil's work in staying mum, even as they understand their silence may let loose the dogs of war, let fall the hard-fought flag of liberty.

Edmund Burke could have been addressing today's Republican leadership - an oxymoron if there ever was one -- when he uttered those famous words; "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

And, boy, nothing is exactly what they're doing.

Or as the New York Times' said in its lead editorial Aug. 2, "...leading members of his own party don't have the spine to rescind their support."

I don't get it. How self-centered can they be? How can they live with themselves?

How can a genuine American hero like John McCain - who not only withstood years of torture as a POW but even refused to allow himself to be released if his fellow prisoners weren't also released - be so brave then and so afraid of this little tin god now?

Surely, at his age and with his distinguished life and career, what would be a better swan song than to pick up the banner of Democracy, lead the way and publicly denounce Trump and say: "I cannot vote for, nor support, someone as unsuitable for president as Donald Trump. I refuse to support him and urge my fellow Republicans to do the same."

He would be the gleaming tip of the spear and I feel sure many fellow Republicans would use his leadership as cover and maybe, just maybe, enough would agree with McCain and this could be, hopefully, the beginning of the end of the Spawn of Satan.

I'm pretty sure McCain won't be reading this piece, but I ardently hope that others who do have his ear are saying the same things to him.

And I hope he listens.

I hope he listened when Capt. Khan's father told CNN recently that he and his son considered McCain a hero. He added that the last book his son read was McCain's book "Why Courage Matters: The Way to a Braver Life."

In which McCain said "We are taught to understand, correctly, that courage is not the absence of fear, but the capacity for action despite our fears."

It's time for McCain to listen to his own words and display the courage we know he has.

Before it's too late for all of us.

Bob Quarteroni, a frequent PennLive Opinion contributor, is a former columnist and editor at the Centre Daily Times. He lives in Swoyersville, Pa. Readers may email him at bobqsix@verizon.net.