Now the GOP has a Clinton of its very own — complete with millions of Clintonistas, people willing to say anything and even believe anything in the quest to “just win.” The Clinton/Trump ethic doesn’t just reflect a post-truth culture but one that’s positively anti-truth. Post-truth implies that the truth doesn’t really matter. Anti-truth means that the truth is your enemy — and so are its advocates.
In an anti-truth world, honesty is a threat. Scrutiny is dangerous. And a candidate and his supporters can say literally anything they want so long as it gets them past the news cycle and moves the ball down the political field. In the meantime, those who care about reality are mocked as suckers — as losers.
But to give up on investigating the truth because the lie is “minor” or because one feels vaguely silly reviewing a Florida surveillance tape like it’s the Zapruder Film is to give up on honesty itself. And that’s exactly Trump’s hope. That was Clinton’s hope. If you can make virtue look bad enough, vice can prevail.
As the primaries continue to unfold, the GOP will learn important lessons about millions of their own voters and elected officials. All those years when they were fighting the Clinton machine, were they really recoiling in disgust? Or were they mostly green with envy? Did they oppose Clinton because he was wrong, or did they hate him because he won?
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