Washington Post (July 24)
Somehow Trump’s appeal keeps rising. “His support within the Republican Party has risen and solidified. It now stands at around 90 percent, which is what tin-pot dictators get in rigged elections.” This leaves many befuddled, but his trick is telling people what they already believe. Playing to prejudice is Trump’s appeal. “He validates the thinking—some of it ugly—of many Americans. To them, Helsinki doesn’t matter and even Putin doesn’t matter. Only Trump does. To them, he hates the right people.”
Tags: Appeal, Dictators, Hate, Helsinki, Prejudice, Putin, Republican, Solidified, Trump, Validation
New Yorker (July 17)
“Trump’s penchant for bald deception and incoherence is not an aberration. It is his daily practice. The vague sense of torpor and gloom that so many Americans have shouldered these past two years derives precisely from the constancy of Trump’s galling statements and actions.” Despite this numbing influence, “what happened in Helsinki on Monday will not be so easily forgotten.” The President’s disgraceful “performances in Europe, and now in Washington,” as he tries to walk things back, “clarified nothing. They only raised dark suspicions and aroused the sickening feeling that we are living in the pages of the most lurid espionage novel ever written.”
Tags: Deception, Disgraceful, Espionage, Forgotten, Galling, Helsinki, Incoherence, Lurid, Numbing, Sickening, Suspicions, Trump
Washington Post (July 16)
“In Helsinki, Mr. Trump again insisted ‘there was no collusion’ with Russia.” In the process, however, he “appeared to align himself with the Kremlin against American law enforcement.” By “refusing to acknowledge the plain facts about Russia’s behavior, while trashing his own country’s justice system, Mr. Trump in fact was openly colluding with the criminal leader of a hostile power.”
Tags: Collusion, Criminal, Facts, Helsinki, Hostile power, Justice, Kremlin, Law enforcement, Russia, Trump, U.S.