Alexandra Petri on how amoral people like billionaire Stephen Ross think they can have their "Trump a la carte" without consequences:
You can ignore all the parts that seem unsavory. You can say, “I like when at his rallies he leads people in cheering the word ‘her,’ which is empowering to women. But I do not agree with the words ‘send’ and ‘back’ on either side, or ‘lock’ and ‘up,’ as the case may be.”
You can say you liked the part of his policies where ICE agents let immigrant parents living in Mississippi take their children to school but quibbled with the part that followed.
The concept extends beyond the donor class, of course. Rationalizing and normalizing are everywhere you look.You can like the part where he visited the victims of shootings in El Paso and said nothing, but disapprove of the parts where he opened his mouth. By such degrees, he quickly starts to seem presidential. You can almost convince yourself you are living in a pleasant time, when democracy is not being strained to its limits.
2 comments:
Trump Republicans do have a cafeteria style rhetoric. He got them their Supreme who will vote to take down abortion law when it comes to the Court, they got lots of immigrants and their families detained, degraded, and abused, he's still promising a Wall, and he got those tax cuts.
So he did also expose their hypocrisy, their racism, and their misogyny, but that isn't important, really, because they're all good Christians in the end. They do pick and choose which items they are willing to be associated with in public.
donnah -- well said!
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