Supporting Trump, Compartmentally

DONALD TRUMP never fails to amuse,amaze, and entertain, almost as if he craves attention more than respect (which, by all appearances, he cares nothing about), and realizes; the more outladish his behavior, the more the attention. That may be part of the reason Nikki Haley is still running for president; with nearly nine months until the election, there would appear, to any normal, reasonable person, to be an excellent chance that at some point, sooner or later, Trump will finally, at long last, say something so outlandish, so egregious in the minds of so many people that his candidacy will come crashing to an end, and the quickest to the kill will pick up the pieces. Haley, if nothing else, is poised to do preciesly that. Haley could beat Biden, would do much better than Trump, and for the G.O.P. to dump Trump and replace him with her would be their most intelligent option, meaning, in all probability, that they will not utilize it. Trump's latest outlandish remark was to the effect that he would esssentially encourage and welcome the Russians to attack any Nato member who has not spent enough money to support NATO, which several have not. The "pushback", to use a popular expression, was immediate, including from Republicans, His entire political career, now spanning nearly a decade, Trump has disparaged our NATO allies, and shown a shocking tendency to kiss Vladimir Putin's butt, and to refuse to condemn Putin's Hitler-esque behavior, which he evidently admires, or at least certainly seems to. When Donald Trump declaed his presidential candidacy in the summer of 2015 I was immediately on board, believe it or not. New blood, an infusion of ideals from other than a career politician. Fresh ideas. That lasted about two weeks. By the time election day came around, November, 2016, I told people that anybody who voted for Trump had lost my respect. I meant it. I still feel basically the same. I thought the Access Hollywood incident soon thereafter would kill Trump's candidacy. Since then, on at least ten occasions, I have been convinced that Trump's political career was over. Imagine that, in America; a little old insurrrection against the federal government ending somebody's political career. Not in America. Only in America. As always, the people who matter are sharply rebuking Trump for his latest idiotic, childish outburst, and they will rebuke a bit more, then forget all about it, and act as if nothing happened. They will go on tolerating or supporting Trump. Trump will, as a result, either retain or possibly slightly increase his support among America's angry right wing. The people who support Trump are angry, and although I have spent nearly a decade disparaging them, as traitors, as morally bereft and intellectually bankrupt, I have, recently, deveoped a new approach. My new approach consists, quite simply, in my accepting the notion that politics and religion are only one part of a person's personality, a person's character, of whom the person is in his or her entirety. We compartmentalize. People do that. The evangelical Christians who support Trump the evil criminal find it easy to simply set their mmorals aside, embrace and support Trump not in spite of Trump's evil and criminality, but because of it, and put their morality back on when the subject turns away from Trump. Their bigotry, their hatred, can thereby be indulged, can be given full expression, but, cleverly disguised as patriotism and piety.