The Useful Idiot

[sheshe2]

How Donald Trump killed the Republican Party with racism and the rest of us with coronavirus.


The following is excerpted from “The Useful Idiot: How Donald Trump Killed the Republican Party with Racism and the Rest of Us with Coronavirus,” by S.V. Dáte.

A pandemic never occurred to them. The idea that Donald Trump would ever be required to sit still, pay attention and make rational decisions that would determine whether hundreds of thousands of Americans would live or die not once crossed the minds of those who put him into the Oval Office.



Oh, they all had their various reasons for wanting him there. For white evangelical Christians, he had explicitly promised to appoint the federal judges they had so longed for to turn back the nation’s cultural clock. For Mitch McConnell, a Trump win — as unlikely as it seemed — was the only real path to making sure Republicans retained control of the Senate and he himself remained majority leader. And for Vladimir Putin, having Trump in the White House — as unlikely as it seemed — would be a dream come true, an opportunity to wreak havoc on his longtime adversary and weaken its historic alliance with Western Europe.

snip

True, there existed then — and continues to exist today — a significant cadre of Republican voters who genuinely believed that the Trump they watched on “The Apprentice” was the real Donald Trump. That he was a real billionaire, based on his own efforts and smarts. That he was capable of making rational, quality decisions based on the facts presented to him.

That excuse, though, does not work for those Republicans from McConnell on down to the congressional candidates who had occasion to speak with Trump in person. As one top Republican National Committee member told me after his first face-to-face encounter with Trump two months before the 2016 election: “OK. Our guy is insane.”


His was not a minority view, by the way. Trump’s incoherence, his temper, his impulsiveness, his breathtaking ignorance — all of it was well-known among the top tiers of the Republican machinery. But for them, it was simply a challenge to overcome, another hurdle that fate had placed between them and their holy grail of judges and tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks. Not once did I ever hear any concern that just maybe they were working to install a useful idiot who truly was an idiot, with absolutely zero leadership qualities one ordinarily looks for in someone aspiring to become the chief executive of the world’s remaining superpower.


Much More: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-useful-idiot-book_n_5f4bf594c5b697186e379058

Long read, yet worth it.

I cry for what they did to this country. Our future and our children's future is at stake. Don't sit home and not vote. Don't vote third party. I remember threads here on DU after 2016...It is only four years, get over it it. It won't be so bad.

Yes it could be and is. 189K dead and counting. Black men and women assassinated by cop as trump/ GOP praises them. Children in cages...I could go on.

I am running out of words.

[The Magistrate]

1. People Who Claim Government Is the Problem, Ma'am

Ought to be excused participation in it....

[sheshe2]

2. Thank you sir.

I agree.

[Blue Owl]

3. Well put

[Hekate]

6. So true

[Eko]

4. Long read but well worth it,

Thanks sheshe2!!

[sheshe2]

10. Thanks Eko.

[Beachnutt]

5. Great read

kinda lengthy but very good. thanks

[sheshe2]

7. Welcome to DU Beachnutt.

[Hekate]

9. All thru that year I knew the GOP could stop him if they wanted to. He was demonstrably unfit.

They could have stopped him at many points along the way, if they truly cared for governance and America. Right up until he was sworn it I hoped against hope that SOMEONE would stop him.

Steve Schmidt has it right: the Republican Party is rotted to the core and needs to be completely dismantled and destroyed.

[sheshe2]

11. This.

Steve Schmidt has it right: the Republican Party is rotted to the core and needs to be completely dismantled and destroyed.

To late for any of them. They are the useless pawns Putin pushes across the board. Know their names. They have shown us their true colors.

[Eliot Rosewater]

12. And they are just warming up...Putin will be hacking the actual votes, again...Yeah, I know, no

evidence he did it before...sigh

Barr will claim any vote not COUNTED on election day or before is invalid, and this is insane as ALWAYS before they counted.

In October Barr will use the power of his office to use LIES to go after HIGH HIGH profile Democrats...

And I might be dead, you might be dead from the virus he is helping to get worse. Yeah, but Hillary gave a speech once.