I get the sense we have crossed another once-inviolable barrier in the Ballad of Donald Trump. Three horrifying hate crimes in five days, like four 500-year floods in a decade, give people overwhelming evidence of big changes, and not in a good direction. Or, if you prefer, people can see shit ain’t right.
I could be wrong — I often have been, especially about how much stomach Republicans would have for the horrors of the past two years — but it feels like last week was different. Trump is reacting to the tragedies, and accusations about his role in them, in ways that will disgust all but his hard-core fans.
Trump thrives on his ability to distract the media by giving them a new outrage to report on every day, sometimes twice a day. But he might find that people who have been mailed explosive devices are going to dwell on this one a little longer — certainly a week. And most Christians will not react to a slaughter at a Jewish house of worship with the indifference that probably would have met such an attack on a mosque.
When even Matt Drudge criticizes Fox News, you know they’ve crossed a dangerous line. White Americans routinely internalize racism, sexism and xenophobia, but as conservatives keep telling us all the time, they’re not fond of being identified as racist. It’s one thing to beat up on eggheads, do-gooders and other liberals, who, in the conservative mind, deserve it. It’s quite another to side with the Nazis in proclaiming there’s a Jewish conspiracy to run the world.
After previous massacres, Trump has usually managed to choke out a few words of condolence, but this time his pallid attempts at promoting “unity” were seen as a cruel joke pretty quickly, because within minutes he was back demonizing Democrats, the media and the immigrant Caravan of Doom. Now he’s going to crash the funerals in Pittsburgh, despite being told by everyone from the governor of Pennsylvania on down to stay away.
Two short years ago, when the GOP was still preaching “personal responsibility,” Trump’s blame-the-victims schtick would have been criticized. The man has never taken responsibility for anything in his life. But so complete is his takeover of the GOP that not a single Republican in Congress (or the Delaware GOP) has stood up to condemn him.
The role of Fox News in promoting this climate of violence is even more obvious than Trump’s influence, prompting the U.S. editor of the Financial Times to call for a boycott of Fox advertisers. (Here’s a list of its top 10 advertisers).
This nightmare will end either when Republicans stand up to the human detritus that constitutes its base or when they no longer control government. I am not betting that Republicans will act before they are voted out of office. But I do wonder how many, 10 years from now, will admit they voted for Trump.