Trump’s Hateful Rhetoric Received by Centrist “Politeness Police”

In the climactic scene of 1989’s Batman, Jack Nicholson’s maniacal, psychopathic Joker, who has poisoned thousands of innocent people and wreaked havoc on Gotham City, puts on his glasses after being cornered by Batman and says, “You wouldn’t hit a guy glasses?”

It’s pretty much a MAGA reaction every time former President Donald Trumphis partner Senator J.D. Vanceor one of their prominent friends says something so racisthot-tempered or dishonest that it is simply indefensible. “Why is the media, Democrats and non-MAGA Republicans so hateful and divisive?”

This was clearly demonstrated last week. Trump’s allies and sympathizers shrugged it off MAGA comic Tony Hinchcliffe Jokes about Puerto Rico as a floating garbage island, about Hispanics as fertile children who come to America and don’t leave, and about cutting watermelons with one of his “Black Friends.” They asked:Why is everyone so humorless?” But just as quickly, the Trumpists were impressed of President Joe Biden’s supposed rudenesswhich, depending on who you believe, was either calling Trump supporters “garbage” or distorting an attempt to describe the hateful sentiment emanating from Hinchcliffe and other speakers at Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden as “garbage”.

Even if you take the least generous interpretation of Biden’s remarks — that the 81-year-old walking gaffe machine, a centrist Democrat known for more than half a century in government, calling tens of millions of Trump supporters “garbage” — how does that stack up against Trump’s typical rhetoric and MAGA, which is so violent and pervasive that it barely deserves a headline?

This question would be best answered by what I call polite policemen. They are members of a non-partisan, centrist commentariat that declares itself to be “politically triballess” or “disgruntled liberals”—anything but Trump supporters. This is despite the fact that they largely reserve their criticism for the progressive left, Democratic centrists, “Never Trump” conservatives, and the mainstream media. Many have come to be known as part of the “intellectual dark web” and its “unorthodox” cousins—their North Star being a commitment to civil discourse and good faith debate across party tribal lines.

Sounds great. But for most of the last decade, this supposedly anti-tribal political movement has occurred regularly Trump and MAGA’s intervention is indefensible, bigoted and authoritarian comments, clutching at their pearls for every perceived insult to “real Americans.”

You could have seen it just this week on The Free Press — the flagship website of the courtesy cops — which had many articles focusing on Biden’s “garbage” comment. One described Hinchcliffe’s racist comedy as “quite an offensive jokeuntil another directly compared Biden’s line on Trump’s dire warnings about the “enemy within.” The difference, of course, is that there are no published Free Press articles focusing primarily on Trump’s claims of an “enemy within” (I found one that mentions them briefly). This is in keeping with the publication’s tradition of ignoring or downplaying the rhetorical excesses of Trump and his allies.

This is the skill of the police: to claim that they are above partisan animosity and free from tribal prejudice, while seeing only civilian crimes with any consequences coming from “the other side.” You can see it all over Elon Musk’s X, where MAGA—posters and fake centrists alike say terrible things in people’s mentions, but respond with “wow, nice ad” when they get a mean tweet.

It’s the Joker wearing glasses.

There is musk one of the patron saints of police officersin spite of calls Kamala Harris “extinctionist” – what he is defined on the Joe Rogan Show as someone “promoting the extinction of humanity and civilization.” He also often used the word “evil” to describe it. Representatives of the Biden administration, news publications and any number of his critics.

Megyn Kelly, another famous heroine of police courtesy, falsely claimed about Harris:slept her way into politics”, called pro-Palestinian student protesters “fluffy mouths, weak knees, crossed legs holding elbows, wearing a mask that no real woman would want to sleep with, and she seems extremely obsessed with the mean girl who gets her way in a public feud with Taylor Swift.

Of course, there are plenty of lesser-known polite cops internet personalities WHO compare Democrats to child molesters and compare them with evil misogynists and demonization of hooligans — but are “open” to voting for Trump despite being held responsible for sexual assault, calling immigrants “pests” who “blood poisoning» of America and the creation of countless racist, sexist and violent statements.

Despite the hypocrisy, MAGA’s right-wing dismay over Biden’s “garbage” comment is a supposed guerilla war. This is due to the cult of Trump, which has no principles, no shame, and no pretense of intellectual consistency. Polite cops pretend they are above this kind of hacking.

I’m all for civil and vigorous political disagreement and debate. I consider myself a “political homeless person” – a real one, not a “vaguely pro-Trump liberal.” I have written extensively about the excesses of the Democrats and the left, criticizing them for it censorship trends, double standards regarding “offensive words,” unwillingness to take responsibility for the damage caused by the extremely long school closures due to Covid and their counterproductive focus reductive identity politics. I have no political heroes, I’m generally unimpressed by politicians and gurus, and I’m skeptical of those in power – be they “elite institutions” or “populist” right-wing billionaires.

The police’s claims of media courtesy of unbiased, non-partisan political commentary deserve to shed light on the illusory image they have created.

Do you think that Biden and Harris are a real threat to freedom and democracy? Ok, vote as you like. But please spare us all pretentious civil discourse if you’re going to treat the relentlessly disgusting words and actions of Trump and his allies as “much-much-much-of-nothing” while intensely policing Trump’s problematic opponents. and “divisive” speech.