Thread: Trump’s crafty move on Iraq: His war comments allow conservatives to move past ....

Tuesday, Feb 16, 2016 01:55 PM EST
Trump’s crafty move on Iraq: His war comments allow conservatives to move past the Bush years while saving face

Trump's Iraq comments were initially surprising, but they give conservatives a way to put Bush years behind them
Amanda Marcotte

Most of Saturday night’s Republican debate held by CBS in South Carolina was more of the same stuff we’ve seen in the previous eight debates, with Donald Trump insulting people and lots competitive right-wing posturing. But there was one moment that was unexpected, when Trump went after Jeb Bush by attacking his brother, former President George W. Bush.

Trump accused the former president of lying about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and called the war “a big, fat mistake.” Trump also sneered at Jeb Bush that the “World Trade Center came down during your brother’s reign.” These comments range from demonstrably true (the 9/11 comment) to arguable (there’s no proof that Bush knowingly lied, but his administration did heavily massage the evidence to get their preexisting desire to start a war in Iraq). Perhaps unaccustomed to hearing reality-based rhetoric during their debates, the Republican audience booed Trump loudly for this.

But does that booing actually mean that this stance, which Trump has been continuing to push in media interviews, will hurt him in the polls? As Salon’s Sean Illing points out, it should hurt him. George W. Bush gets high approval ratings in South Carolina, which is holding its Republican primary on Saturday, and, as a general rule, Republicans don’t enjoy admitting that the last president they voted into office was one of the worst presidents in American history.

And yet, as Illing points out, it doesn’t seem that this is budging Trump’s numbers. “There are no sacred cows left for Trump to slay,” he writes.

Heather Digby Parton of Salon agrees, writing, “Trump’s appeal all along has been based upon his taking on sacred cows. That he does it to their faces reads as courage.”

But I would argue that there’s more going on here than just the fact that Trump’s supporters are able to rationalize away anything he says, though that is undoubtedly a huge part of this. There’s also a possibility that Trump is giving conservatives exactly what they need right now, which is a way to move on past the Iraq War.

As with most things conservatives support, from the Vietnam War to bans on same-sex marriage to support for segregation, there comes a time when a topic stops being “controversial” and instead a consensus forms that the conservative position was wrong. When this happens, conservatives usually have to find a way to reconcile their own positive opinions of themselves with the fact that they were very, very wrong. Usually this requires reframing the issue so they can keep preening self-righteously while quietly moving off the wrong opinion and hoping everyone forgets that they ever held it.

Once it became unacceptable to openly support segregation, for instance, the move was to push for “private property” rights, such as the right to refuse service to black people or to sell your house to them, that just so happened to uphold segregation. With same-sex marriage, the shift has been from openly opposing it to supporting the “right” of individuals to cite Jesus and interfere with the ability of couples to get married smoothly. Once it became undeniable that Vietnam was a losing cause, the right switched off to supporting the myth that POWs had been left behind, in order to retain a sense of righteousness.

But no such reframing has really emerged that allows conservatives both to let go of the Iraq War while maintaining a sense of self-righteousness around the issue. Republican candidates have offered up some distractions — ISIS! Benghazi! Iran has nukes! — but the problem remains: The tribalism of the right allowed them to support a war that was obviously a bad idea, and history will judge them for it. It’s embarrassing and there’s only so long you can deny the obvious before reality starts to seep in.

http://www.salon.com/2016/02/16/trum...e_saving_face/

He's getting compliments in the strangest of ways from the strangest of places. These are signs of budding unity, coming together. It would be a wonderful thing, and if anyone can do it for our country, I believe he can. Trump has a goodness that isn't on the surface like so many politicians, it's deep down in his bones.