Loving Trump, warts and…well, warts
For two years, one alleged conservative after another has disappeared from American society and been replaced with a pod replica prepared to make or accept endless excuses for a laughably wee man who comes with more baggage than a Samsonite warehouse. How often have we heard this one: “I’m so worried about America’s future that I have no choice but to support Trump.”
That false lament — they only say this to appease friends who question their choice to join a cult — is the crux of the “binary choice” argument. It is the crux of the “I fear for my children and grandchildren” argument. It is also, to put it politely, the biggest crock in the history of rationalizations. Donald Trump is one of the most infamous living symbols of everything these erstwhile conservatives claim to be concerned about with regard to America’s future. And yet they cite those concerns as their reason for elevating that very symbol of civilizational decay to the role of national leader and figurehead.
“I worry about the future of my country — so I will follow a loose cannon without guiding principles off any cliff whatsoever as he makes a mockery of the presidency, regularly flouts the U.S. Constitution, veers left of Barack Obama on trade, guns, and citizenship for illegal aliens, and piles trillions onto America’s already irredeemable national debt without blinking.”
“I fear for my children and grandchildren — so I will go to the wall (The Wall?) for a man who routinely expresses admiration for tyrants, has made ‘civility’ a dirty word among his followers and ‘vulgarity’ a badge of honor, has a long and well-bragged-about history as a serial swinger and philanderer who jokes about his struggles to avoid sexually-transmitted diseases, has professionals on his staff tasked with paying out hush money to porn stars, routinely slings personal insults unworthy of a twelve-year-old mean girl at opponents and allies alike, publicly mocks disabled people and Republican women he finds physically unattractive, stalks journalists who question or challenge him, casually advocates overriding rights entrenched in the Constitution, and has neither any awareness of nor any discernible interest in what America is, was, or should be.”
Good thinking! And here I was imagining those people were just seduced by a cult of celebrity, blinded by the R next to his name, or easily hoodwinked by the machinations of the Washington establishment that knowingly planted this fool as the GOP nominee in a strategic move to destroy constitutional conservatism forever as an effective challenge to the progressive hegemony. Silly me.
