As with evangelicals, the essence of the operation was to invert reality, to take an impious and vulgar man and make him appear god-fearing, and in turn magically transform Trump’s white nationalist impulses into the illusion of an open-minded and inclusive leader—putting lipstick on a racist, chauvinist pig would be another way to put it. The task wasn’t made easier by Trump’s incessant, impulsive, self-destructive habit of picking fights with folks like the parents of a Gold Star family whose deceased son happened to have been Muslim, enraging his mourning parents. It was a low that I
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