Trump's paranoid rage is getting worse. But the White House 'resistance' is a sham

Trump’s paranoid rage is getting worse. But the White House ‘resistance’ is a sham.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/09/06/trumps-paranoid-rage-is-getting-worse-but-the-white-house-resistance-is-a-sham/?utm_term=.e030a07e27ea

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Except in a sense, Trump absolutely does have “first principles,” and these are precisely the problem. Among them are racism and white nationalism; the prioritization of self-enrichment over all else, even extending to a total lack of concern about foreign sabotage of our democracy, simply because he was its beneficiary; and the corrupt, intertwined convictions that law enforcement is merely an instrument of his political will and that he and his cronies should be protected from institutional accountability at all costs, no matter what damage is done along the way.

These do not come in for condemnation. Nor do the policies and actions they have given rise to — policies and actions that are inflicting an untold human toll and great damage on the country. In this sense, the claim that Trump is “amoral” lacks meaningful moral content, and the assertion that Trump is “anti-democratic” lacks meaningful pro-democratic content.


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It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that this internal resistance doesn’t think these other things — the corruption, the bad-faith white-nationalist agenda and the immense human damage it is inflicting, the authoritarian attacks on our institutions — are as damaging to the country, or at least as worthy of sounding the alarm about and acting to constrain, as, say, his trade policies are.

What all this really signals is how those who are currently enabling Trump will try to circumscribe the post-Trump reckoning to come. As Chris Hayes notes, this emerging blueprint of the internal resistance is really an “insurance policy” to “preserve the reputation of the GOP’s entire political and governing class,” insulating them when “things get much worse.”

If and when this reckoning comes, it will be on us to make sure that all these things that do not seriously concern this “resistance” form an important component of that reckoning.