In case you missed it in the Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin has a good column about Trump’s rally in Montana where he effusively praised candidate Greg Gianforte (R-Mont.) for attacking Ben Jacobs of The Guardian with a body slam. (Gianforte pled guilty to the assault and was sentenced to community service, anger-management classes, and a small fine. Jacobs had merely asked him about the Republican health-care bill.)
I think this is Rubin’s best line, it is about why Trump's base never holds such remarks against him:
….this is what they love about him — the contempt for a free press, the celebration of male thuggishness, the mindless emotional outbursts.
Some choice excerpts from her column:
“I had heard that he body-slammed a reporter. And he was way up. … I said ‘Oh this is terrible, he’s gonna lose the election,’ ” Trump continued. “Then I said, ‘Well, wait a minute, I know Montana pretty well, I think it might help him.’ And it did.” And his ghoulish fans ate that up.
……….
Trump won’t apologize, of course, nor will his devoted base hold his remarks against him. To the contrary, this is what they love about him — the contempt for a free press, the celebration of male thuggishness, the mindless emotional outbursts. Somehow it empowers them, to side with brutes and bullies, to revel in the silencing of a free press.
On the attempts by part of the conservative media to smear murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi:
Whatever the impetus, the lack of decency on display — the willingness to defame a reportedly tortured, murdered and dismembered journalist to deflect blame from a brutal regime that snookered both the U.S. and Israeli governments into adopting it as the key bulwark against Iran — should disgust people of good will, whatever their political or foreign policy views. Proximity to and reverential treatment of an amoral, congenital liar in the White House have disabled the intellectual and moral reasoning powers of many previously respectable Republicans.
Whatever the cause, if you are falsely smearing a missing man, trying to diminish the horror of a thuggish regime’s alleged gruesome murder or yukking it up with a president celebrating violence against a reporter, it’s time to rethink your politics.
Another Washington Post columnist, Karen Tumulty, also has a column about this in today's WaPo:
Excerpts:
If there was any doubt as to why the Saudis might think the leadership of this country would look the other way on the atrocity they are alleged to have committed against our colleague Jamal Khashoggi, President Trump erased it Thursday night.
The president of the United States, who has long referred to journalists as enemies of the people, celebrated an act of violence against a reporter on U.S. soil — to cheers and laughter from his supporters.
As horrifying as Gianforte’s behavior was, there is of course no comparison to torture and murder, which is what is now believed to have happened to Khashoggi. But Trump’s point could hardly have been clearer: Journalists deserve no protection, much less respect for their role in protecting the functioning of democracy.
As I continue to watch Trump descend into the depths of depravity I struggle to find my own words to describe his egregious words, and how terrifying it is that nothing he says crosses the line of decency with his base.
I have some knowledge of rhetoric Hitler used to incite hate against the Jews and fear of them in his speeches. I think Trump rivals him in hatemongering. Perhaps a historian will publish a comparison.
Addendum:
Read selected extracts from Hitler’s The Jewish Question speech.
* To the Jews and the other enemies of the State, however, it appeared to be the last flicker of the national power of resistance. And they felt that when it had disappeared, then they would be able to destroy not only Germany but all Europe as well.
* The rescue of Europe began at one end of the Continent with Mussolini and Fascism. National Socialism continued this rescue in another part of Europe and at the present moment we are witnessing in still a third country the same drama of a brave triumph over the Jewish international attempt to destroy European civilization.
* But these other nations are continually being stirred up to hatred of Germany and the German people by Jewish and non-Jewish agitators. And so, should the warmongers achieve what they are aiming at, our own people would be landed in a situation for which they would be psychologically quite unprepared and which they would thus fail to grasp. I therefore consider it necessary that from now on our Propaganda Ministry and our press should always make a point of answering these attacks and, above all, bring them to the notice of the German people. The German nation must know who the men are who want to bring about a war by hook or by crook.
* These attempts cannot influence Germany in the slightest in the way in which she settles her Jewish problem. On the contrary, in connection with the Jewish question, I have this to say: It is a shameful spectacle to see how the whole democratic world is oozing sympathy for the poor tormented Jewish people, but remains hard-hearted and obdurate when it comes to helping them, which is surely, in view of its attitude, an obvious duty.
* Above all, German culture, as its name alone shows, is German and not Jewish, and therefore its management and care will be entrusted to members of our own nation.
He ends with a reference to the United States.
* Our relations with the United States are suffering from a campaign of defamation carried on to serve obvious political and financial interests, which, under the pretense that Germany threatens American independence, is endeavoring to mobilize the hatred of an entire continent against the European States that are nationally governed. We all believe, however, that this does not reflect the will of the millions of American citizens who, despite all that is said to the contrary by the gigantic Jewish-capitalistic propaganda through the press, the radio and the films, cannot fail to realize that there is not one word of truth in all these assertions. Germany wishes to live in peace and on friendly terms with all countries, including America.