How Trump supporters argue
TIM MANNELLO
Williamsport
Not long ago I wrote a letter listing the 30 principles that explain Trump’s words and actions.
It appeared in another newspaper too.
A response to my letter in this newspaper provides an insight into how Trump supporters defend their man.
The responding letter writer offered what he deemed was a 30-point rebuttal to my letter. The only problem is that his letter had nothing remotely to do with mine.
Not a single one of his rejoinders addressed a single one of the points I made. His letter was intended as a counter-argument. It was a stand alone piece, a Frank Costanza-worthy Festivus rehash of regurgitated Trumpian grievances to shore up the faithful. His thirty points were a summation of the constantly repeated Trumpian Creed offered by the local default TV channel, FOX News in response to any criticism of Trump.
I imagine the writer judged his list of 30 points brilliant and cathartic even if they were totally irrelevant. My addicted FOX News friends thought the “rebuttal” was a coup de grace (or a “slam-dunk” as they actually put it) that put me in my place. So will, I expect, at least 70 percent of the folks who read the exchange and are, like the letter writer, also totally immersed in bromide FOX group think.
For them, “What about somebody else arguments” are all they think it takes to demolish any and all criticism of Donald Trump. They imagine the deflective recitation of the alleged real or imagined immoral and illegal behavior by Bill and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is all that is necessary to justify the unethical and criminal behavior alleged against Trump.
Such deflection is like defending Willie Sutton by regaling a judge about the bank robberies of John Dillinger. When you don’t like what is in plain sight, Trump supporters turn people’s attention to something else. Trump is a master of this kind of deflection. His base has become adept at it too. In the coming months, they will be called on more than ever to employ the art of deflection as investigations reveal the details of his tawdry and criminal business and political life.
It might be advisable for those who are obsessed with “The Wall” to divert their attention for a moment to the writing on the wall. As “Fox’s lonely truth teller,” Judge Andrew Napolitano has cautioned the faithful: President Trump is already implicated in a crime by federal New York prosecutors.
Biographies of Trump have exposed Donald Trump as an artful Houdini escaping indictments at every turn in his life. Odds are that other legal shoes are about to fall and this time there may be no exit.
The only question that may be left to be decided about President Donald J. Trump is whether he will end his days as President in the White House or in the Big House. My hope is that he will spend his last days as commander in chief in the White House. The only way I see that happening is if he “cops a plea” and agrees to a deal that trades his resignation for immunity from impeachment and other legal repercussions.
Donald Trump has worked all of his life to successfully avoid the consequences of his misbehavior by diverting attention to some shining object.
This time around, deflection may well not help him escape ejection. I do not wish to see Trump put away. I only wish him to go away and… have his cell phone confiscated.
Oh, well, I can dream, can’t I?
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