The political blogger went on Chris Matthew’s show and told the truth about Donald Trump. His scathing critique was brilliant, and brutal.
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Andrew Sullivan is not easily categorized. He’s a conservative political commentator, and openly gay. He’s former editor of The New Republic, and also a practicing Roman Catholic. He’s a British man commenting on American politics without also being a soul-crushingly pompous snot.
Sullivan has been out of the political talkfest of cable and blogs for over a year, on a self-imposed hiatus. But he came back in the ring recently, out of a stated sense that Donald Trump is not being properly understood.
i.e.: Trump is not being taken as the alarming threat that he is.
I saw Sullivan on MSNBC’s show Hardball two days ago, and found myself actually smiling. If you watch cable news, you know that grinning does not usually accompany the bickerfest of the talking head show setup. And I wasn’t happy because Sullivan was funny or cheeky.
I was happy because someone had finally spoken the truth.
What a concept.
Cable news has been loathe to come down too hard on Trump. Ever since the first Republican primary debate on Fox, after which Trump threw a hissy fit over Megyn Kelly’s first question. Trump then went on to boycott a subsequent Fox debate, and thus the networks are terrified that Trump will similarly blacklist them.
And with Trump absent, so comes a huge loss in ratings.
I’m not sure how Sullivan snuck in his honest assessments. Maybe he implied he’d comment in a totally different way while prepping. Whatever the play, once Sullivan cut the polite niceties and let Trump have it on air, the result produced nothing less than jubilee in this writer.
The best two quotes:
- “I don’t care if we lose this election. It’s our patriotic duty to stop this maniac from becoming president of the United States.”
- “When you have a candidate in Trump who supports violence, who condones violence, and will encourage violence. Because every time there’s been violence, he’s defended the person inflicting violence. Because his own campaign manager uses battery as a weapon against the press. This is a man who believes in violence. Why else would he favor torture if he didn’t see that as the ultimate form of power.”
But the whole bloc is worth watching.
So thank you, Andrew Sullivan. Telling the truth about Trump requires the courage to take on big-money media. A risk far too few journalists have been willing to take.
Well done.
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Photo: Flickr/Trey Ratcliff