Trump’s paranoid war says everything about the collapse of political morality

The damage is not just what he does, it is what people have learned to tolerate.

You can’t have moral actions or policies originate from or effected by an administration whose “leader” is fundamentally amoral, especially if that administration is comprised of cultists with the same whacked-out amorality.

my god -- I said to myself, after reading the title, "Yes," I said, "there truly is no limit to the stupidity of journalists. THIS is why Trump has been so successful." And then, come to find out it's one of the soberest commentators in the blogosphere who said it. Well, that's it, really. There is no hope. The delusion that anything at all "Trump" says anything at all about "normal politics" is proof, if anyone needed it, that the ability of even the most sensible to get distracted by stupid shit is the real problem here. Really, if Rory Stewart has forgotten that Trump is destroying NATO, is acting as a Russian asset in that effort, has committed mass murder (the Venezuelan boat strikes and the Iranian girls' school), etc etc etc ad infinitum, and that THAT is our real problem, and that the question isn't "what's wrong with normal politics" but "what's wrong with the American people, that they seem unable a) to grasp the severity of the issue and b) to respond creatively, imaginatively, and energetically" well, we can all just go to sleep for the next three years, because we're not going to get good direction from anyone. Rory Stewart. God in heaven.

>What were once understood as political virtues — the capacity to tolerate ambiguity, make long-term arguments, respect institutions and accept lesser evils consciously — are now presented as process, cowardice and evasion. Coercion, punishment and radical action are offered as strength. Rather a lot like those virtues came under fire in the wake of the Depression in the 1930s.

People can just stop choosing this.