Westneat: Endorsement for a bully

The problem wasn’t just that the paper endorsed Trump. It’s the argument the editorial made.

“Donald Trump is a bully and a bigot,” it started out. Yes, it went on, it’s true, Trump panders to racists. He endlessly tweets conspiracy theories. He denies climate change. And he’s been “cavalier about COVID-19 and has led poorly through the pandemic.” He’s also “a wretched human being,” the editorial remarkably concluded, adding: “We recommend voting for him anyway.”

You have to admit that’d be a great bumper sticker: Wretched Human Being for President!

Some Spokanians were disgusted that a candidate could be a bigot and endorsed in the same breath. Considering our history, shouldn’t bigotry be disqualifying? Some journalists at the paper, who point out the editorial was the sole opinion of the publisher, Stacey Cowles, were angry because of something not mentioned — that Trump has launched a war of sorts on journalism itself.

All strong critiques, but I want to rise in defense of the editorial anyway. Not because I agree with it. But because I learned something from it.

It’s easy to see why Trump has such a loyal following with the masses, from his outsider brashness to his middle-finger style with the liberals to his tough-on-immigration stances. I’ve been curious for years though about how it is that so many party elites and establishment types seem so compliant to his worst excesses.

Why does no one in the Republican Party ever speak up? I’ve interviewed a number of Trump backers over the years to try to understand this disconnect. The rationale is that Trump’s wild statements and even his bigotry are a sort of performance art, an act not to be taken literally.

The Spokesman editorial refreshingly cuts through all the performance art baloney. Trump is no joke, it states. He really is a bigot and a know-nothing charlatan. But we back him anyway …. why? Because we think he’ll be better for business.

Seriously, that’s pretty much it. Joe Biden wants more spending on things like health care and education (true), so he’ll have to “impose unprecedented tax increases,” (not true, especially the “unprecedented” part — for the record what Biden is actually proposing are higher taxes on people making more than $400,000 a year).

Given the choice between a wretched human being and “a doddering, doting uncle who would hand out gifts the nation can’t afford,” the editorial closes, “economic policy and principle should prevail. Vote Donald Trump.”

This may be the most revealing thing written about the moral bargaining that’s at the root of the Trump era. It goes to how it is that the elite classes, from D.C. down to the Chamber of Commerce level, all could tut in public how “concerned” they were about Trump’s “inappropriate” behavior, while for the most part enabling it. Money isn’t the only thing that matters, as any fantastically rich person will tell you. But if to get some tax cuts or goose the business cycle all you have to do is tolerate some rank bigotry, crazed conspiracy theorizing, polarizing name-calling and autocratic demagoguery, is the choice even difficult?

The real story is that the publisher in Spokane is far from the only one to take this deal. Much of the business class and the rank-and-file of an entire political party is in for it with the rationalizing of a cult.

I feel for my reporter brethren at The Spokesman-Review. But I’m also glad the paper printed this. It says the quiet parts out loud. At least now, when people look back at this time in bafflement, how it ever came to pass will be right there in writing.