I’m not sure who I detest more: the outright propagandists at Fox News, or the faux intellectual conservatives who put lipstick on the pig of Republican racism and corporate greed. No, I am sure. Those folks on Fox and Friends are just doing what they’re paid to do. They make no pretense of having anything between those ears of theirs.
Today we learn from George Will that Donald Trump has “a dangerous disability”. Can’t argue with that conclusion, but how did we get here. Not entirely due to folks like Will, but he played his part. His job has been to put an intellectual veneer on a party that has now been convincingly exposed, by this recent health care law, as a mere tool of the rich (Yes, I know lots of us have known that for years, but some people don’t pay attention). Folks like Will and the ghastly David (“Please think Edmund Burke when you read my columns”) Brooks have specialized in putting a phony intellectual gloss on political positions that can’t withstand moral scrutiny. They get away with it largely because we have a media that has been browbeaten by Republicans into adopting an official religion of bothsidesism that has no basis in reality. In Will’s case he does it by using multi syllabic words. In Brooks’s case, he does it by appealing to cultural traditions and moral principles that shapeshift to suit the argument he’s making.
Will helped legitimize the Donald Trumps of this world whether he wants to accept that fact or not. Is Donald Trump mentally ill, as Will charges? Of course he is. Is he pursuing policies any different than, say, a Ted Cruz would be pursuing had he gained the White House last November? That would be a hard case to make. It is now obvious that besides the inability to think that Will decries, Trump has no interest in policy when it has no obvious impact on his own personal wealth. His sole interest is in “winning”. If that means destroying health care for millions of people, he’ll do it. Same goes for destroying the environment or democratic institutions. But he’s not doing these things because he necessarily wants to destroy health care, the environment, or democratic institutions. He’s doing it because if he doesn’t do those things, he can’t “win”. He can only “win” if he aligns his objectives, and his definition of winning, with the objectives of the Paul Ryans and Koch Brothers of the world.
Had Cruz been elected, would Will have any problem with his policies, which would differ in virtually no respect from Trump’s? No, he’d have that lipstick case out, and that pig’s lips would be a shiny red.
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