People have a tragic flaw: Sometimes we want others to do the thinking for us. And across the ages promoters and con men have been more than willing to oblige. They invite us to indulge in the fantasy that a newfound father figure will fix it all, though it never works out that way.

This is the premise of a prescient book from 1841, “Extraordinary Delusions and the Madness of Crowds,” by the Scottish journalist Charles MacKay, which documents in extensive detail the moments when entire societies have set aside their own good judgment under the spell of a charlatan.

We are in one of those moments today.

President Trump’s abandonment of fiscal responsibility will prove disastrous — whether we think about it or not. His State of the Union address underscored his own thinking; it was long on pander and did not address our country’s bleak financial state.

Yet amazingly, conservatives whom I have long respected somehow look the other way.

What if it were President Barack Obama allowing the national debt to grow by a trillion dollars a year, despite the booming economy? What if other Republican presidents had abandoned the idea of trying to get to a balanced budget over the next 10 years? We would hear howls of protest. But now? Crickets.