Promoting my “Trump Shitstorm” book has been an interesting experience. When I show it to someone, the cover usually provokes a strong reaction. And most responses are positive, because of course most people I know are intelligent and right-thinking.
But there are surprises. Which shouldn’t be a surprise since, after all, the country is so divided, and there are — even now! — still plenty of Trump cult devotees. And also, what I sometimes get is, “Yeah, Trump was bad. But the other side is worse.”
One who gave me that line was a guy originally from Russia. Gave me a long diatribe in fact. Including the “What about Hillary” trope. Yes! What about Hillary! Still relitigating the 2016 election. Actually thinking Hillary more dishonest than Trump. (He finally did buy my book.)
I was no Hillary fan and didn’t vote for her. But here was (is) a classic case of double standards. Judging her by standards diametrically different from those applied to Trump — if one is predisposed to wallow in the mud flung at her while blinding oneself to Trump’s mountain of monstrosities.
Republicans have spent years hammering away at demonizing Democrats. While of course Democrats, and especially the hard left, can be criticized in many ways, portraying them as corrupt liars and traitors who want to destroy America, impose “socialism,” open borders, promote crime, etc., is just plain ridiculous.
Yet so relentless have Republicans been at flogging this dystopian nonsense that many people now have it ineradicably implanted in their brains.
Now they’re going wild over the Biden document matter. Which would be a total nothingburger, had it not been preceded by Trump’s truly criminal behavior — deliberately carting away masses of classified documents, and lying and stonewalling authorities about them. Biden merely forgot to return some documents, which were immediately handed over when found. Yet Republicans (like Kentucky Rep. James Comer) are screeching, with straight faces, that it’s the Justice Department applying a double standard, unfair to Trump. He himself even had the brass to send a mass email about Biden “caught red-handed.” (Also falsely asserting Biden “stole” the documents, and ordered the Mar-a-Lago raid.)
The DOJ, in self-defense, has now designated a special counsel to investigate the Biden situation, as it did regarding Trump’s.
House Republicans are launching their own investigation of what Biden did — and what the FBI and DOJ did — while blowing off what Trump did. Double standard indeed! One’s head explodes.
This episode epitomizes my bottom line answer to those saying “the other side is worse.” Trump Republicans are dishonest to the core. As with their absurd demonization of Democrats described above. A central party dogma is the big “Stolen Election” lie, which most GOP politicians cynically know is false. Whereas most Democrats are basically honest and sincere; their indictment of Republicans grounded in reality.
A former lifelong Republican, I see this clearly. Anyone who can’t is blinded by partisanship.
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