I keep seeing representatives of the right (and sometimes of the far left) defending Trump and I wonder, have they no decency? How many incidents of racism, misogyny, lying, corruption, service to foreign enemies, or incompetence does it take for them to stand down?
Yet they do not. They defend the wall although it is not needed, the crisis is fabricated, it is founded in racism and vanity, it is linked to concentration camps and children in cages and unnecessary deaths on the southern border. They defend Trump's claims of no collusion...
...even though evidence of collusion includes the president himself asking for the assistance of the Russians, embracing Russian law-breaking to support his own campaign, defenses of the Russians, giving national secrets to the Russians, obsequious service to Vladimir Putin,...
and obstruction of justice on behalf of the Russians. They defend him in the face of his embrace of white supremacists and of his serial abuse of women. They defend him the face of his campaign finance crimes and his proven efforts to defraud the American voter.
They defend him as seeks to profit illegally from the presidency. They defend him as his foundation is shutdown for abuses. They defend him as he defends murderers and despots overseas and alienates our most important allies. They defend him as he lies 10 times a day.
They defend him as his cabinet and appointees are revealed to be profoundly corrupt. They defend him as he despoils the environment. They defend him as he dismantles the international order that has been the foundation of American security for three-quarters of a century.
They defend him although his tax cuts helped only the rich, hurt the majority and did not help the U.S. economy. They defend him as he daily proves his unfitness for office. They defend him as he promotes unheard of nepotism in the U.S. government.
They defend him as he attacks the Department of Justice, the FBI, the Intelligence Community, distinguished generals, heroes, families who have lost their children to sacrifice for the nation.They defend him as he daily reveals himself to be the most corrupt president in history.
They defend him as he daily reveals himself to be the worst of us. And we must wonder, at what point should such defenses require questioning by those who give a platform to these talking heads and enabling columnists and toadying pols.
At what point do producers and editors have to ask, "Has this person lost any shred of credibility they may once have had? Can anyone who defends the indefensible for so long be seen as anything but complicit in the crimes they are defending."
There is no journalistic principle that requires that liars be defended because the truth is the only victim, no ethical guideline that says that racists or criminals have advocates because that only compounds the wrongs that already have taken place.
You know their names. You see them daily. You hear their lame defenses of this most indefensible American and the gang of thugs around him and his sponsors among our enemies and corrupted leaders overseas.
And you must recognize that only when audiences turn away from them, only when audiences protest their appearances, only when audiences demand advertisers no longer support them, only when audiences demand the truth and a modicum of decency, will they be silence.
They do not "deserve" our attention. They are not practicing politics as usual. Their views have been so deeply discredited they no longer have credibility or merit. There is no form of fairness that requires they be allowed to speak.
Indeed, quite the contrary, they have abused the privilege of having our attention. As the dark truths about this dangerous president and those who enable him are further revealed and justice is done, part of that justice will be consigning...
...these unprincipled tools of Trump and Putin and their ilk to the ignominy and obscurity they have earned. They have helped bring us to where we are. If we are to return to the kind of country we can be (and once were) their role must be understood and they must be cast aside.
There would have been no Trump Administration without them. These crimes are theirs. These wrongs, this corruption of our society, are theirs as well as Trump's. Mark them as you would mark him. They are not voices in our public discourse. They are its enemies.
