9/5/20
At the end of James Michener’s Korean War novel, “The Bridges at Toko-Ri,” an admiral notes the bravery of aviators who are flying perilous missions against the enemy. “Where do we get such men?” he asks. Apparently President Trump wonders the same thing — but not in a complimentary way. The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, quotes Trump telling aides that the men and women who have given their lives for their country were “suckers” and “losers.” “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” he reportedly asked his then-homeland security secretary, retired Marine Gen. John F. Kelly, as the two stood by the grave of Kelly’s son, who was killed in Afghanistan. The Atlantic report clearly stung. Witness Trump’s frenzied denials; he even called in the first lady to defend him. But a president who has lied or deceived more than 20,000 times has no credibility — and his defense quickly fell apart. Trump denied having called the late Sen. John McCain a “loser,” yet he did so in 2015. The Atlantic report was confirmed in short order by the Associated Press, The Post and — the cruelest blow — even by Fox News. He has erased every red line, and none of it seems to matter to his base. He entered office with 45.5% approval in the FiveThirtyEight poll of polls. Today he stands at 43.5%. Nearly four years of craziness — and his numbers have barely budged.
Why do Trump supporters even go through the motions of trying to discredit the latest allegations? Their support hasn’t been shaken by all of the other things the president has done. He has welcomed Russian election help; called white supremacists “very fine people”; put children in cages; gotten impeached for trying to blackmail an ally into helping him politically; kowtowed to Vladimir Putin and avowed his love for Kim Jong Un; unleashed security forces on peaceful protesters; fomented violence; espoused insane conspiracy theories; refused to say that he would accept the election results; and, most recently, urged his fans to vote twice in violation of the law. He has erased every red line, and none of it seems to matter to his base. He entered office with 45.5 percent approval in the FiveThirtyEight poll of polls. Today he stands at 43.5 percent. Nearly four years of craziness — and his numbers have barely budged. Alexander Hamilton called “Party-Spirit” the “most fatal disease” in “governments of the popular kind.” That disease is ravaging America: Were it not for Party-Spirit, Trump could have been impeached and removed before he had a chance to mismanage the coronavirus. And now Party-Spirit is likely to inoculate Trump from the political fallout of his insults to our military. Truly this is, as the kids would say, the “LOL nothing matters” presidency.
