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Eric Foley's avatar

David Frum’s framing of this is excellent. Donald Trump’s entire political career has been a case study of encouraging, obliquely justifying, minimizing the severity of, and taking pleasure in political violence… as long as it happens to the Other.

It is not extreme to point out that this guy tried to steal the previous presidential election with lies and violence after the voters rejected him, while still stating that he must be defeated at the ballot box and condemning this attempt on his life and any suggestions that violent reprisal is ever acceptable. If Trump continues to excuse the January 6th rioters with whataboutism and lauding them as patriots and political prisoners, then he should be condemned as a hypocrite who only hates political violence when it’s visited on him. If Trump shocks us by acting like he’s chastened and starts saying less crazy things like “if I lose this election, my followers should accept it”, then maybe this is indeed an opportunity to lower the temperature. It won’t be sincere unless he’s willing to defenestrate Marge, though.

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