Rise of Shamelessness in US

[reedak]

1. Jack Holmes is Associate Editor for News & Politics at Esquire.com, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P. Pierce. He also does a dash of sports and some feature writing. His work has appeared in New York magazine and The Daily Beast.

The following are excerpts from Jack Holmes' February 1, 2018 article headlined "The Death of Shame, or the Rise of Shamelessness?" with subheading "What defines American politics as we enter year two of the Trump presidency?"

(Begin excerpts)
“I’m the least racist person you will ever interview,” President Trump told a gaggle of reporters earlier this month. Trump was responding to reports that he had dismissed all 54 countries of Africa as “shitholes” and wondered why the U.S. didn’t prioritize immigrants from places like Norway. Previously, the president reportedly insisted Nigerians who come here would never "go back to their huts in Africa,” and suggested Haitian immigrants “all have AIDS.” Trump began his political career with a loud and completely evidence-free campaign to prove Barack Obama, America's first black president, was born in Kenya. He also repeatedly suggested that Obama, who was editor of the Harvard Law Review, could not have gotten into Ivy League schools legitimately. On the morning Trump formally declared his intent to run for President, he characterized Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals.

In the 1970s, Trump and his father were sued by the Justice Department for housing discrimination against black New Yorkers. In 1989, he took out a full-page newspaper ad calling for the death penalty for a group of black and brown 14-, 15-, and 16-year-olds convicted in the Central Park Jogger rape case, and continued to advocate for it 14 years later when their wrongful conviction was overturned. During the 2016 campaign, Trump spread disgusting propaganda about black-on-white crime and lied about the flow of illegal immigrants across the southern border. Before his inauguration in January, Trump attacked John Lewis, who marched for civil rights alongside Martin Luther King, Jr.—and was nearly beaten to death by an Alabama state trooper at Selma—as "all talk” and “no action." Trump once said a federal judge could not preside over his case fairly because the judge’s parents were Mexican.

Yet the incident in January marked at least the third time Trump has publicly deemed himself “the least racist person” alive. This is a ludicrous thing for anyone to say. Gandhi wouldn’t say it. The whitewashed version of Martin Luther King, Jr. that some remember wouldn’t say it. It is simply shameless, and there is no better word to describe this president or the political era that he has ushered in.

As we embark on a second year of this presidency, more and more of our public officials now feel they can say anything, even when they previously said the opposite, or when we can readily see their falsehoods. More and more of our country's leaders are steadfastly, almost impressively, impervious to shame.....

Trump attacked John McCain, a senator from his own party who spent five-and-a-half years in a North Vietnamese prison camp, as a loser who got captured. Trump spent those same years getting draft deferments and called avoiding sexually transmitted disease in ‘70s New York his "personal Vietnam." He peddled the insane conspiracy theory that Ted Cruz's father was involved in the JFK assassination. He flouted the norm of presidential candidates releasing their tax returns, historically a gesture of transparency meant to show they will not bring conflicts of interest into office. Trump tapped his family, many of whom bring their own conflicts, to be among his most senior advisers. Many of those he appointed to leadership roles essentially made a career out of trying to destroy the agencies they now run.

But above all, Trump continues to disseminate false information at a breathtaking, surely unprecedented clip—then screams that any reporter or news outlet that challenges him is spreading Fake News. By his 355th day in office, The Washington Post assessed that the president had made 2,000 false or misleading claims. Remember when The Wall was going to cost $12 billion and Mexico was going to pay for it? Now the president is asking for $25 billion in American taxpayer cash.

Trump quite clearly does not believe in the concept of truth in the public discourse. He believes anything he says is true so long as enough of his supporters believe it. This has allowed him to trample the norms of our democratic politics with almost complete impunity. As president, he has outlasted any and all attempts by his peers or the public to shame him.... (End excerpts)

Source: Source: https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a ... elessness/