He spoke some words others wrote. Did he convince anyone of his sincerity?
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The president spoke the words written for him. He condemned the right things and expressed the appropriate sentiments.
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He denounced “racism,” and “bigotry,” and “white supremacy,” calling them “sinister ideologies.” “Hate,” he said, has no place in America.
But what did he mean? How does he define “bigotry”? Does it include demonizing minorities? Saying that black members of Congress should go back to where they came from? What does Trump mean by the word “racism”?
Does it include referring to immigrants as rapists? Or suggesting that they were invading the country, or that they infested cities where they lived?
What is “white supremacy”? Does it involve retweeting white nationalist memes? Or providing aid, comfort, and winking endorsements to the alt right?
What does the word “hate” mean? Could it include joking about shooting Hispanics who tried to enter the country illegally?
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So what do the words actually mean? In Trump’s world, words like “bigotry” and “hate’ never apply to the president’s own behavior or language.Instead, they are things we must denounce because they are bad but which have nothing to do with me.
This appears to be the designated posture of the GOP today.
It is easy and salutary to denounce “hate,” but they have defined it down to mean nothing that Trump does or says. Ever.
Just ask John Cornyn or Lindsey Graham, or just about any Republican. The political advantage is that they can they can denounce this very bad thing, but never encounter it in the real world.
It is a moral posture without any practical effect at all; and therefore perfect for what the Republican Party has now become.
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Trump Exposes the GOP’s Moral Spinelessness https://t.co/I2TF4eEb94 via @BulwarkOnline
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) August 6, 2019
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