Condemnation of Trump becomes showy morality play

Groupthink is a dangerous thing, whether in support of a bad idea or in the quest to muzzle someone who, for whatever reason, has drawn the ire of The Important Proper Appropriate People.

Ever since Donald Trump proposed a halt in Muslim immigration - a proposal based on the recognition that virtually all terrorists who might seek to enter the country come from within that subset of people - you'd think he had proposed that every Muslim be frog-marched out of his or her mosque and executed on the street. For the record, I don't think the proposal is either workable or wise. That's called a disagreement on substance. I see no need to issue moral condemnations of the man for making it - as it's clearly not a matter of bigotry or religious discrimination, but rather a recognition that one way to solve a problem might be to close your doors to those most likely to exacerbate it. That's simple problem-solving. A CEO who notices that all the employees he hires away from a certain competitor keep racking up poor attendance records will probably stop hiring people away from that competitor. This is how Trump thinks because that's where he comes from. Maybe he should care about implications of what he's proposing in the context of singling out all members of a world religion. But the reason he doesn't is neither hatred nor bigotry. It's simply because thinks first about what would solve the problem, and second (if at all) about whose feelings it hurts. That's the reality. The public huffing and puffing about Trump's idea is quite something else, and it's far more embarrassing than they claim Trump is. This morning the Detroit Free Press followed in the footsteps of liberal big brother the New York Times with its own self-important front-page editorial, not condemning guns but condemning Trump - and by extension the entire Republican Party - and pretty much demanding that everyone do the same:

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It is the natural outgrowth of the Republican Party's longstanding flirtation with bigotry, its turn away from the civil rights movement, its electoral "Southern strategy," which relied on racism and bigotry to win national elections, its abandonment of affirmative action, its widespread skepticism and disdain for immigrants and immigration. Decades of the GOP walking the line of racist discourse have given Trump permission to espouse and promote outright bigotry. That leading Republicans have denounced Trump provides only modest cover. Trump's soaring support reveals harsh truths about the party base that so-called establishment Republicans have built, with fear and bigotry and xenophobia, with the notion that a fictitious, former America should be our ideal — ignoring the reality of life for women and minorities during that golden age — and most harmfully, by perpetuating the idea that success for others, particularly non-white, non-Christian, non-heterosexual, non-male others, means they will lose. It's a false equation, but one that has given Republican candidates significant traction among some demographies. This is the subtext for the last 50 years of Republican politics: fear. And hatred.

What Bolshevik. Let the Free Press talk to its own party about its hatred of Christians and anyone who earns more than $100,000 a year before it preaches to Republicans about hatred. Good night. But this is now the in-vogue demand of the left, the media and the political class concerning Trump. Have you condemned him yet? If not, you are part of the problem. Ted Cruz is catching all kinds of crap because he merely said he disagrees with the policy proposal rather than condemning Trump to hell. Here's why this is so embarrassing and wrong: Trump made a proposal for how to deal with terrorism that is arguably over the top and unworkable. I for one would share the view that it is over the top and unworkable. Then you have these other things going on: ISIS cuts off people's heads, burns people alive, drowns people in cages, rapes and murders women and throws homosexuals off rooftops to their deaths. Where were the front-page editorials condemning any of this? Barack Obama, who as president of the United States took a sworn oath to take responsibility for the security of the United States, insists that this is not really a serious problem and refuses to take aggressive steps to combat it, going so far according to some reports as to manipulate intelligence reports to support a political narrative that the ISIS threat is much less than it really is. Where are the front-page editorials excoriating this man for dereliction of his own duty, which is a much bigger problem than one proposal made by one man who presently holds no political office? The massive hubbub over Trump's proposal, exposing far more passion than the terrorist acts themselves, demonstrates how we as a nation remain unserious and unprepared to combat the threat we face. We get more upset about someone who ruffles feathers in the course of discussing solutions than we do about the problem itself. Or I should say, our political class does this. The reason Trump is doing so well in the polls is not because people think he is a perfect candidate. Far from it. It's because he errs - and yes, sometimes he errs wildly - on the side of solving problems. His rivals and his critics almost always err by wanting to take sensitive little baby steps to solve monster problems, assuming no one is offended in the least - or worse, take steps in the wrong direction that exacerbate the problems. Given a choice between the two flawed approaches, is it really any wonder a lot of people prefer the former? Disagree with Trump's idea if you want. I do. But save your self-aggrandizing morality play. When you get that upset about the real evil we face, or about the refusal of our current president to deal with it, then maybe it will be possible to take you seriously.