Nobody expects Donald Trump to speak the truth about himself or his opponents anymore. To support him requires a suspension of disbelief that is impressive in a misbegotten way.
So when the president of the United States tells four duly elected members of Congress to go back to where they came from, an old trope of bigotry that everybody understands, the politicians who support him pretend that he was saying something else. Even his rank-and-file backers know how to play dumb — like the gentleman who told NPR that Trump was merely telling Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley to “go back to their home states.” Sorry, but nobody is really that stupid, although Trump and his minions treat us all as if we are.
Behind Trump’s rhetorical tactics lies what psychologists call projection: Each accusation he lodges against adversaries is emblematic of his own character. Defaming the four women of color, he said, “They hate our country. They hate it, I think, with a passion.” He said they express “a love for enemies like Al Qaeda.” And he was merely inviting them to leave the United States “if they want to leave,” which they must because “they’re doing nothing but criticizing us all the time.”
View the complete July 19 article by Joe Conason on the National Memo website here.
