Trump isn’t even trying to hide it anymore
The Republican Party has long operated on the premise that the most effective way to get away with corruption and evil is to talk a good game about doing the right thing. George W Bush told us not to be prejudiced against Muslims, and then he began bulldozing Muslim counties. Paul Ryan talks about wanting to help low income minorities even as he tries to eliminate the social safety net. Donald Trump largely threw this to the wind by attacking everyone right out of the gate. But even he’s had the sense to maintain just a sliver of deniability – until now.
Remember when Trump claimed he was going to lift up black people and LGBT people? They never bought it. But he wasn’t talking to them. He was trying to convince suburban white moderates that he wasn’t quite the monster he’d been made out to be. Some of them chose to buy it, because it was more convenient than accepting the horrifying truth about him.
But in his desperation, as his criminal scandals have begun closing in on him and threatening the people closest to him, Trump has begun throwing pretense to the wind. Today he stated that he might invite murderous thug Kim Jong Un to the White House, just a few days after he banned the entire Philadelphia Eagles football team from the White House. It got worse.
While playing footsie with Kim today, Trump viciously attacked the leaders of Canada and France. This is brazen even by his standards. Even if suburban moderates aren’t quite sure what to make of his foreign policy erraticism, they know full well that Canada and France are our allies, and that genocidal animals like Kim Jong Un don’t belong in the Oval Office.
If Donald Trump were in control of things, he’d still be trying to keep up some degree of pretense, because he knows that kind of thing helps him in general terms. We know Trump’s already tentative grasp on the presidency is slipping further, because he can’t afford to try to keep up appearances anymore. His downfall is well past that point, and even he seems to know it.
