QOTD: an apostate
by digby
Ben Howe,former Red State writer and Never-Trumper has written a book called The Immoral Majority. This interview in The Atlantic features this quote which I think is exactly right:
In the minds of a lot of conservatives, the left exists to impugn their motives, and the Republican Party regularly lied to them and said they would defend them and then didn’t. And that was the establishment. Trump became their hero, because he hated the establishment, and he beat up on the media, and he was fighting back against all these forces. The more he fights, the more they feel justified, like, He’s our hero because we needed someone to do this for us.
Trump’s appeal is not judges. It’s not policies. It’s that he’s a shit-talker and a fighter and tells it like it is. That’s what they like. They love the meanest parts of him.
I guess this really is one of those chicken or egg situations. I see people who love a lying asshole like Trump because he’s a “shit-talker” and it seems obvious to me that they really are deplorable. And the truth is that, for me, this is a relatively new thing. I impugned the motives of their leadership over the years and rightly so. But it’s only with the advent of Trump and the ecstatic reaction from GOP voters to his disgusting Nuremberg rallies that I realized how far gone they really were.
I have always assumed that most Republicans were basically normal Americans with an ideology I opposed. I knew that some were racists but I never thought it would add up to 90% or more of the Party! I certainly assumed that they would be appalled by Trumps obvious psychological and intellectual insufficiency, much less his clear immorality. It’s very hard to have respect for people like this:
I know you are not supposed to say this. I get reprimanded every time I mention it. But it is my honest observation and in this day and age I think it’s important to be honest about what you see. The Republican rank and file is in thrall to an unfit racist demagogue and he’s not hiding it. So it’s on them.
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