It’s not worth spending much time talking about Donald Trump’s press conference yesterday. He was the same guy we’ve watched since he came down that escalator on June 16, 2015. Heck, he was the same guy we watched at WrestleMania 23, body slamming Vince McMahon and shaving his head in front of 80,000 screaming fans at Michigan’s Ford Field. The same guy who could seize the spotlight even from the likes of Gary Busey and Dennis Rodman on Celebrity Apprentice.
The only thing astonishing about the press conference is that people are still astonished when Trump acts like Trump.
What’s far more worrisome is the way Trump feeds some of the worst impulses in the conservative movement, turning otherwise sane and smart people into Facebook commandos and Twitter SEALs. Trump is a man of the moment, and that moment belongs to the tough-guy Right.
We conservatives love to point and laugh at liberal melodrama. Thanks to a brilliant 2015 piece from Lutheran pastor Hans Fiene, we even have a term for it: “Selma envy.” Scratch away at all too many liberal activists and you’ll find that they pine for the noble, heroic moments of yore. They wish they had been there standing for justice when the dogs were turned loose, so they cast their present activism in the most dramatic terms. They’re not just the opposition; they’re the #Resistance. They’re not just fighting for, say, police reform; they’re declaring that black lives matter.
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