Jonathan Chait in New York’s Intelligencer section has an incisive comment on Trump’s defenders in the context of the recent killing of General Qasem Soleimani by American forces here. Unfortunately, it has one defect:
The Iran conflict has placed President Trump in a heretofore novel position of outflanking his domestic foes as a hawk. Having previously cast himself as a deal-maker or isolationist, Trump now occupies — at least temporarily — the traditional Republican identity of war fighter, punishing the world’s villains. His supporters are taking advantage by employing the familiar conservative message in such situations: accusing their opponents of actively sympathizing with the enemy.
“The only ones mourning the loss of [Iranian general Qasem] Soleimani are our Democrat leadership and Democrat Presidential candidates,” says Nikki Haley. Because she has previously established a modicum of independence from Trump,Haley has received the most attention for this remark, but she is hardly alone. Kellyanne Conway sneers, “The alarmists and apologists show skepticism about our own intelligence and sympathy for Soleimani.” Republican apparatchik Tony Shaffer attacks “Democrat lawmakers who would rather mourn a war criminal than credit President Trump for making the world safer.” And so on. …
What makes this current smear campaign so extraordinarily ironic is that Trump is actually guilty of the very thing his surrogates are falsely charging his opposition. Trump has repeatedly lavished praise on the world’s most notorious dictators. Trump in 2016 praised Saddam Hussein’s methods of killing terrorists: “He did that so good. They didn’t read them the rights. They didn’t talk. They were terrorists. Over.” Trump’s point was not only that the United States was unwise to remove Saddam Hussein from power, but edged into outright admiration for his unlawful methods.
This is a theme he has voiced over and over. Trump on Vladimir Putin: “The man has very strong control over a country. Now, it’s a very different system and I don’t happen to like the system, but certainly in that system, he’s been a leader. Far more than our president has been a leader.” On Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman: “A strong person, he has very good control.” On Xi Xinping: “He’s a strong gentleman, right? Anybody that — he’s a strong guy, tough guy … President Xi, who is a strong man, I call him King, he said, ‘But I am not King, I am president.’ I said, ‘No, you’re president for life and therefore, you’re King.’ He said, ‘Huh. Huh.’ He liked that.” …
That Trumpists can turn around from ignoring or justifying his professed love of dictators to accusing Democrats of supporting an Iranian militarist merely shows the mental flexibility required of the president’s defenders.
Bold mine. Mental flexibility is neither a bad thing nor is it an accurate description of the Trump cultists. Mental flexibility permits thinking outside the box, effective evaluation of arguments countering one’s own perceptions of reality, and the ability to say I’m wrong and I’ll change my beliefs!
The correct noun Chait inexplicably failed to choose was moral. While I’m aware that I myself believe that morality changes over time to enhance group survival as their context changes, the time scale here renders the observation irrelevant; morality should be firmly concrete over the scale of, at most, a few years.
Moral flexibility, in this context, suggests the criminal, the hypocritical, the untrustworthy. It’s ok for your President to sympathize with autocrats, but not his political opponents? Wrong-oh, you moral midget.
Such people shouldn’t be permitted positions of power and responsibility. Hear that, Representative Collins (R-GA)? Resign now.
