If Trump survives impeachment, it’s clear who he’ll have to thank Jonathan Freedland
over 4 years in The guardian
The president’s abuse of power looks as bad as Watergate, but so far he’s enjoyed the privilege of the age: impunity
Donald Trump has spat out so many insults and broken so many taboos that it’s hard for any single remark to linger long in the memory. Nevertheless one line from his 2016 election campaign has endured, partly because it was a jaw-dropper and partly because it offered an early glimpse of what would later be revealed as a deep truth about both his candidacy and his presidency – and even our current world.
It came when Trump was praising his early supporters as “so smart” and so loyal that “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters”. The imagery was gross, the vanity egregious but, as so often with Trump, his reptilian intelligence had landed on something that was, though ugly, true: namely, that he enjoys a rare form of impunity. Continue reading...
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