Only seven days after Donald J. Trump was sworn in as president, James B. Comey has told associates, the F.B.I. director was summoned to the White House for a one-on-one dinner with the new commander in chief. …
The president then turned the conversation to whether Mr. Comey would pledge his loyalty to him.
Mr. Comey declined to make that pledge.
(New York Times, May 11, 2017)
No surprise then that Trump was thinking of firing Comey “for a long time.” In fact, he admitted as much in a series of incriminating TV interviews this week.
But what is so troubling is not that this wannabe dictator demanded an oath of loyalty from the FBI director. Rather, it’s the unavoidable inference that the vice president and every other member of his cabinet duly gave it, pledging loyalty not to the Constitution but to Trump.
Which compels me to reiterate this fearful analogy:
If you’ve ever wondered how so many German politicians became Hitler-saluting fascists, you need only look at how so many Republicans are taking pride in presenting themselves as Trump-saluting bigots. …
The phenomenon of Donald Trump says far more about the American people than him. They clearly want to be entertained by the disruptive spectacle he creates and couldn’t care less about the offensive and invariably self-aggrandizing things he, er, tweets or does.
More to the point, the nature of foolish pride is such that, no matter how willfully he betrays them or endangers us, these Trumpasites will be loath to ever admit they were wrong about him. This is especially the case with the Christian evangelicals who betrayed zealous adherence to moral rectitude (and sold their souls) to vote for him.
(“Trumpasites Already Gagging on Big Lies and Outrageous Pledges They Swallowed,” The iPINIONS Journal, January 29, 2017)
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