WHAT A FOOL BELIEVES
To paraphrase a point that Josh Marshall made on Twitter Saturday, it’s hard to be skeptical about collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign in 2016 when you can watch it happening live in 2017 every time Donald Trump encounters his bff Vladimir Putin.
Trump knows that Putin is lying when he denies interfering in our presidential election. He knows it because he knows that his campaign, including members of his own family, worked with Russians to sabotage that election.
Congressional Republicans know it, because a few of them were involved in the sabotage. Other Republicans are willing to trust the unanimous conclusion of all 17 American intelligence agencies. And most of them know it because they’re smart enough to add 2 + 2 and get reasonably close to 4.
The problem is, they know it and they just don’t care. The vast majority of Republicans in Congress care more about cutting taxes for rich people than they do about the oath they took to uphold the Constitution.
The same is true in the crazy world of Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore. Congressional Republicans knew all along that he was crazy. Now they know he’s a crazy pedophile. Deep down, Republican voters in Alabama know it too, and they don’t care. They’ve spun out various talking points, ranging from “the victims are lying” and “the victims were asking for it,” all the way that to “Democrats are worse than child molesters,” and “maybe pedophilia isn’t all that bad.”
As Republican consultant Rick Wilson said on Twitter last Friday, “A meaningful % of my party are insisting nothing is real in a carefully research story with four on the record statements from victims. In related news, a meaningful % of my party believed Hillary Clinton was part of a child cannibalism and sex ring in a pizza restaurant.”
Fox News and Donald Trump have constructed a nearly airtight bubble of fake news for Republican true believers. When Trump or one of his allies gets caught –in anything from a simple mistake to a complex crime – they first ignore it, then deny it, and then blame the victim. Flood the zone with excuses and counter-theories, and then wait for a new scandal to break in a couple of days. In Trump’s America, there’s always at least one new scandal every week.
The American press is simply not wired to process this much scandal, and eventually stops trying. They’ll report that X statement is false, and Y statement is false, and Z statement is false. But most of them are unwilling to connect the dots and call a liar a liar.
They’ll report that Roy Moore was a child molester, but they’ll stop short of acknowledging that the Republican Party is willing to welcome, or at least tolerate, a pedophile in its ranks as long as it means one more vote in support of tax cuts for the super-rich.
When pattern recognition gets short-circuited, all the press has left is play-by-play commentary. And the problem with play-by-play commentary (which is pretty much what I do in this space) is that it leaves Donald Trump in control of the narrative, even when it’s unfavorable to him.
Control of the narrative – or keeping your eyes on the prize, in other words – will become increasingly important as the investigations of the Trump-Russia election sabotage expand.
The House Intelligence Committee, in particular, is likely to be the source of some deliberate misinformation. That’s because some Republican members of the committee are working with Trump – and some may even be among Mueller’s targets. They recently interviewed Donald Trump’s bodyguard, Keith Schiller, and guess what? Details of his testimony were leaked. But it looks like there were fake quotes leaked by one of the Republicans on the Committee in order to get the press to bite, and then allow Team Trump to slam them for reporting fake news.
Jesus said (John 8:32) “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” The sad thing about Trump’s base is that they’ve insulated themselves against the truth. Unless they wake up, they’ll never be free.