Civil Commotion

This is Trump’s leadership legacy: Because he continues to push the boundaries of decency in rhetoric and action, those around him must prove their dedication by parting with their integrity and moral judgment.

Michael Gerson
Trump’s tests of loyalty are really tests of character

Exactly so. Trump soils and corrupts everything and everybody he touches.

Though I don’t think much of crowds gathering to harass administration officials, I don’t have the slightest problem with a restaurant owner telling Sarah Huckabee Sanders she isn’t welcome. Sanders has bad character, she isn’t part of the decent world, and she ought to be put out of polite society.

America is in the hands of its enemies

Trump is trying to gaslight the entire country, and the Deporable One-third at least are falling for it.

President Trump told former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in an interview that mainstream media’s coverage of his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was “almost treasonous.”

[ … ]

On his show on Trinity Broadcasting Network that aired Saturday, Huckabee asked Trump if he trusts Kim Jong Un, and the president said he certainly does.

Trump said he’s had a “very good relationship” with the North Korean leader and “we have a good chemistry together.”

[ … ]

“First of all, we came to a wonderful agreement, it’s a shame the fake news covers it the way they do… It’s almost treasonous, you want to know the truth,” Trump said.

Let’s tot this up, shall we? Kim Yong Un got international credibility, an end of joint military exercises on his border, and probably a Trump hotel some day. America got another iteration of a vague expression of a desire to ‘denuclearize’ someday — which North Korea has been saying for almost 3-decades.

There are only two plausible explanations here: Trump is actually as stupid as he often seems to be, or he is a puppet in the hands of Vladimir Putin.

But even a stupid but well-intended man ought to have some intuitive sense of right and wrong, of what is good for his country and what harms it, should at least want what is good for the country. A stupid man would at least hear the experts who protest against …

• Systematically dismantling the Atlantic alliance

• Raising tariffs that stoke inflation that eats his tax cuts

• Snatching nursing babies from their mother’s breast

• Summarily exiting NAFTA

• Summarily exiting the Trans-Pacific Partnership

• Summarily exiting the Iranian nuclear agreement

• Summarily exiting the Paris climate accords

Trump invariably chooses the course that is against America’s interests. I no longer accept that is because of good faith differences. America is in the hands of its enemies.

An array of people have weighed-in on Sarah Sanders’ removal from a Lexington, Virginia restaurant last Friday evening, and much of the commentary — left and right — fails to recognize a needful distinction.

The restaurant’s refusal to serve Sanders was NOT just like refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex marriage.

Gays are born gay; that is an all-but-settled fact. Sexual orientation is not so easy to see as skin color, but it is no less innate, and discriminating against gays is punishing people for something they can’t control — just like discriminating against black people.

The restaurant discriminated against Sarah Sanders because she is a rotten human being who lies for a living, who is mean-spirited even as she flaunts her piety, who insults people who expect her to conduct herself professionally — and those things go to character and are under Sanders’ control. Sarah Sanders hasn’t any business amongst decent people, and it’s a good thing that the excesses of the ongoing national embarrassment of the Trump administration has people willing at too-long last to treat figures like Sanders with the contempt they deserve instead of as celebrities.

Apparently, there is a restaurant in Lexington, Virginia — it’s a beautiful town that I visited often when I lived in Roanoke — that doesn’t serve the likes of Presidential Press Secretary Sarah Sanders.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said she was kicked out of a Virginia restaurant by its owner because she works for President Donald Trump.

I would not have humiliated her by throwing her out of the restaurant if she had her children with her; otherwise — good! Sanders lies for a living and hasn’t any business amongst decent people.

I understand the point that throwing her out with her children present is a taste of the medicine she has spent the past week defending, but the thought of doing so leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It is always wrong to involve children, or use them as pawns, in disputes that should not concern them.

Right: Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer “want” to protect lawbreakers. The cynicism of Trump, and the stupidity of his supporters. are breathtaking.