He’s swindled and lied to everyone he’s dealt with his entire adult life. So why did you, Trump voter, think you’d be any different? Wake up.
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Before this week, the essential character of Donald Trump wasn’t a secret—he was always a flamboyant liar, a raging narcissist, and a man driven by impulse and expedience—but to the victims of the biggest political con in American history those were part of his roguish charm. He was always an actor, playing the successful dealmaker and negotiator.
Trump voters are world-champion rationalizers. They knew he was a bastard, but he was their bastard. They knew he was a lying, amoral, narcissistic snake, but by God, he was their snake. American conservatives who knew better sold their virtue, ideology, and principles once Trump won the White House, nodded sagely and intoned, “But Gorsuch.” The last two weeks have been a delicious comeuppance for all of them, as Trump has burned them to the ground by forging a new alliance with the Democratic leadership of Congress and leaving his Republican frenemies in the dirt.
Trump’s fans love his attacks on the GOP. Regardless of the eventual consequences for the party, they defend Trump’s erratic behavior and Russia ties. The Charlottesville disaster was a heavy burden. The blame game from Trump’s failure to sell Congress on an Obamacare repeal raised the tensions. The attacks on GOP senators set teeth on edge. The first flirtation with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi over the debt ceiling was like a slap.
Then Trump’s full-fledged triple backflip on DACA and the wall struck like a political earthquake. The sense of shock and betrayal in his base is magnificent. They foolishly believed Trump would never betray them on immigration, despite his lifetime of serial lying and deception.
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There’s a popular argument among Trump apologists that the wall, deportations, and DACA weren’t linchpins of Trump’s campaign rhetoric. This is cheap and sloppy historical revisionism. He opened his campaign with an attack on Mexicans. At Trump rallies, “build the wall” was the tentpole of his speeches and central to the crowd’s Pavlovian call-and-response. His attacks on Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, and the rest of the 2016 primary field were predicated in large measure on their alleged weaknesses on immigration. Anti-immigrant rhetoric was the hot wire connecting more traditional working-class Republican and Reagan Democrat voters who remain firmly convinced that Mexicans took their jerbs after the passage of NAFTA. It was also a talisman among the alt-righters, who believe that allowing immigration (legal and otherwise) “browns” their desired lily-white America.
The glorious, Fatal Attraction-level bonkers fury of Ann Coulter and the rest of Trump’s true believer cohort over his DACA flip produced an ocean of furious MAGA tears, incoherent rage, and promises to walk away from Trump if he didn’t get back on his wall-building, kid-deporting rhetoric of 2016. The Breitbart comments section, always a perfect focus group of what the Trump base believes on any given day, turned ugly, and for once it wasn’t directed against the Republican Party, but against Trump himself. At best, Trumpsplainers evoked the hoary Trump-fan trope of “You don’t understand Trump’s 87-dimensional quantum chess game, man.”
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As members of the reviled Never Trump movement, it’s not just an end-zone celebration play to say we warned you. We warned you over and over that Trump’s brand isn’t success; it’s betrayal. We warned you that he believes in nothing, and so he will break any promise, shaft any ally, and abandon any position. Hate us all you want, but if you think this is the last time he’ll shank his faithful, you might want to review the last 40 years of his personal and business behavior.
Actors act. Con men con. Traitors betray. It’s what they do. This week was just the latest example from the Conman-in-Chief.
- Discussion
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My latest:
Memo to Trump Fans: Conman-in-Chief Will Betray You All https://t.co/BU5GfftueK via @thedailybeast
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) September 18, 2017
Exactly.
However, I don’t relish saying “I told you so.” Trump’s swindle is going to affect all of us. I just hope God forgives those who, despite all the warnings, supported and voted for Trump, while at the same time, denouncing anyone who wouldn’t genuflect before almighty Trump as traitors…because, God help me, I can’t forgive.
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