Greg Gutfeld distanced Trump from the chanting fanatics at his North Carolina rally yesterday. Somehow in Gutfeld’s mind, the puppets were independent of the puppet master. They were free agents in their mob behavior, and Trump had no influence on their hysteria.

“He did not say this,” Gutfeld claimed. “The chanters there are like the media. In that they took his words and turned it into something he didn’t mean.”  

He was not shy about using the usual ‘what about the media’ distraction. (It is an example of the ‘tu quoque’ fallacy, in which the arguer points to another’s supposed bad behavior as an excuse for the subject’s. Toddler’s use it in the classic, “but everyone does it”.)

Gutfeld added, “Remember he said go home, fix it, and come back and show us how.” Excusing the racist dog whistle as nothing more than an exercise in skill development. 

As many have pointed out, it is a ridiculous demand. Home is America. And besides, they were elected to be Representatives to the US Congress. Their mandate is to take care of their home districts, not fix foreign problems.

That’s the State Department’s role. It is an executive agency falling under the President’s purview. The Constitution authorizes the President to handle America’s international relationships. And as with every other one of his responsibilities, Trump has screwed it up.

Gutfeld isn’t done. He further divorces Trump from his zealots with the lame assertion,“You can’t choose your fans, and you can’t control their behavior. You can’t answer to things that are out of your control.”

You certainly can pick your fans. Trump has deliberately chosen language that appeals to a specific audience. People follow Trump because they hear things they like. Gutfeld has compared Trump’s crowds to sports fans – but the analogy is weak. Sports fans are geographic – political fans are demographic. In Trump’s case, older, whiter, maler, less educated, more religious and attracted by nativism, white nationalism, and calls to unthinking and simplistic patriotism.

It would be easy for him to control his fans’ behavior. As soon as the chant started, he could have told them to behave. He might have given them a civics listen in how to disagree without being disagreeable. Instead, he stopped talking, puffed his chest, and jutted his jaw. With a smirk, he let the crowd give voice to their innate bigotry.

Not that Trump saw it that way. He claimed, as Gutfeld had done, that what he and the crowd had said was different. “I would say I was not happy I disagree with it but again, I didn’t say that. They [the crowd] did. But I disagree with it,” 

He then blatantly lied about the actions he took. He claimed that he tried to stop the chant by “speaking very quickly” and that he “felt a little badly about it”. The first statement is belied by the video, which documents a 13-second gap in his speech as the chant crescendoed. And the second is contrary to all the evidence that he cares about nothing but himself.

People who follow these things also noted that during the campaign he had initially repudiated the calls to “lock her up” — before making it part of his brand.

Conservatives now face a dilemma. They are too craven to take a strong stance against Trump and risk his disfavor, but they can’t let this ugly display go unanswered. So typical of the bobbing and weaving is House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy who said the chant had “no place in our party or our country”. And added, “What the President did, the President did not join in. The President moved on.”As if merely basking in the adulation somehow obviated his complicity. 

McCarthy has no shame. He’ll say anything to curry favor and protect the Republicans. Party over country, and Trump uber alles as the leader of this dismal mob. 

​​​​​​​It is the pattern of Trump’s life. He acts like an ass, and people cover for him.

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