As a DKos front page story today notes, very, very few Republican officials have had the decency to condemn Trump’s most recent racist Tweets about Reps. Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Tlaib, and Pressley. And those who have spoken up have typically been mealy-mouthed.
One fairly prominent conservative pundit, David French has basically unconditionally condemned Trump’s most recent racist Tweets: “Donald Trump’s Tweets Were Malicious, and Republican Silence is Deafening”
But the problem extends far beyond Washington. There are many GOP leaders who, quite frankly, understand that they criticize even the president’s racist speech at their own peril. The grassroots have spoken. Loyalty to the president must be absolute, or one risks a primary challenge. Yet individual voters have responsibilities as well, and they must understand that extraordinary loyalty to a malicious man broadcasts their own disdain for their fellow citizens.
…..
Trump is fully employing malice as a political strategy. It’s not clever. It’s not shrewd. It’s destructive and wrong. The fact that so few Republicans can muster enough courage to state this obvious truth speaks to a sad reality — the rot extends far beyond 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
There are, of course, some problems with French’s essay. He repeatedly cite’s Trump’s “malice” but never manages to bring himself to use the word “hate”. He does, though, accurately use the word “racist” to describe the Tweets.
Now, I’m no fan of David French, and have written about his deep hypocrisy and forked-tongue regarding Trump (see here for example). And it’s seems highly likely that he’s only calling out Trump here because it affects his family directly; he has written about how he adopted a child from Ethiopia. So this is yet another case in the tiresome conservative tradition of only speaking out about bigotry when it directly affects the conservative himself and his family.