{"id":27250,"date":"2020-01-09T13:41:42","date_gmt":"2020-01-09T19:41:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=27250"},"modified":"2020-01-09T13:41:42","modified_gmt":"2020-01-09T19:41:42","slug":"pick-the-right-noun-next-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2020\/01\/09\/pick-the-right-noun-next-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Pick The Right Noun Next Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jonathan Chait in New York’s Intelligencer<\/em><\/strong> section has an incisive comment on Trump’s defenders in the context of the recent killing of General Qasem Soleimani by American forces here<\/a>. Unfortunately, it has one defect:<\/p>\n

\n

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 \u2014 at least temporarily \u2014 the traditional Republican identity of war fighter, punishing the world\u2019s villains. His supporters are taking advantage by employing the familiar conservative message in such situations: accusing their opponents of actively sympathizing with the enemy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only ones mourning the loss of [Iranian general Qasem] Soleimani are our Democrat leadership and Democrat Presidential candidates,\u201d 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\u00a0sneers<\/a>, \u201cThe alarmists and apologists show skepticism about our own intelligence and sympathy for Soleimani.\u201d Republican apparatchik Tony Shaffer\u00a0attacks<\/a>\u00a0\u201cDemocrat lawmakers who would rather mourn a war criminal than credit President Trump for making the world safer.\u201d And\u00a0so on<\/a>. …<\/p>\n

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\u2019s most notorious dictators. Trump in 2016 praised Saddam Hussein\u2019s methods of killing terrorists: \u201cHe did that so good. They didn\u2019t read them the rights. They didn\u2019t talk. They were terrorists. Over.\u201d Trump\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

This is a theme he has voiced over and over. Trump on Vladimir Putin: \u201cThe man has very strong control over a country. Now, it\u2019s a very different system and I don\u2019t happen to like the system, but certainly in that system, he\u2019s been a leader. Far more than our president has been a leader.\u201d On Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman: \u201cA strong person, he has very good control.\u201d On Xi Xinping: \u201cHe\u2019s a strong gentleman, right? Anybody that \u2014 he\u2019s a strong guy, tough guy \u2026 President Xi, who is a strong man, I call him King, he said, \u2018But I am not King, I am president.\u2019 I said, \u2018No, you\u2019re president for life and therefore, you\u2019re King.\u2019 He said, \u2018Huh. Huh.\u2019 He liked that.\u201d …<\/p>\n

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<\/strong> flexibility required of the president\u2019s defenders.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bold mine. Mental flexibility<\/em> 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!<\/em><\/p>\n

The correct noun Chait inexplicably failed to choose was moral<\/strong>. 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<\/em> over the scale of, at most, a few years.<\/p>\n

Moral flexibility<\/em>, 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.<\/p>\n

Such people shouldn’t be permitted positions of power and responsibility. Hear that, Representative Collins (R-GA)<\/a>? Resign now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27251,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27250\/revisions\/27251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}