In case you missed it, Monday, May 29, 2017 is Memorial Day — a day in which America pauses to reflect upon and honor the sacrifices of those who fought and died in service to our country. For the New York Times’s Charles M. Blow, however, it’s just another day for hyperpartisanship. He begins his op-ed, titled “Donald Trump: The Gateway Degenerate,” by reminding readers:
Last week, when voters in Montana elected Greg Gianforte to fill the state’s lone seat in the House of Representatives, even after he was recorded in a physical altercation with a reporter, many Americans — like me — were left to look on in astonished bewilderment.
There was an audio recording of the altercation. The reporter, Ben Jacobs of The Guardian, says Gianforte body-slammed him while he was simply doing his job, asking questions on the eve of the election. Gianforte’s camp issued a bogus statement basically blaming Jacobs for the incident, but that statement was not at all backed up by the audio.
There were witnesses. A Fox News crew was there, and as Fox’s Alicia Acuna wrote of the altercation:
“Gianforte grabbed Jacobs by the neck with both hands and slammed him into the ground behind him. Faith, Keith and I watched in disbelief as Gianforte then began punching the reporter. As Gianforte moved on top of Jacobs, he began yelling something to the effect of, ‘I’m sick and tired of this!’ ”
She added: “To be clear, at no point did any of us who witnessed this assault see Jacobs show any form of physical aggression toward Gianforte.”
At the time Gianforte body-slammed Jacobs, the president was 4,669 away from the action in Belgium, but this didn’t stop the aptly named Blow from venting. But Trump wasn’t his final target. He extended his angst to House Republicans, to president of the Media Research Center Brent Bozell, and to commentator Laura Ingraham.
“This,” Blow wrote, “is all an outgrowth of Trump’s degradation of common decency. Trump was the gateway candidate. When Republicans allowed themselves to accept and support him in spite of his glaring flaws and his life lived in opposition to the values they once professed and insisted upon, they moved themselves into another moral realm in which literally nothing was beyond the pale.”
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He then devolved into the usual recitation of things long-since debunked to protest:
When they allowed themselves to vote for a man who insulted Mexicans and Muslims, who mocked a disabled reporter, who called for executing the Central Park Five and who had “a long history of racial bias at his family’s properties, in New York and beyond,” according to an extensive report by The Times, Republicans surrendered the mantle of morality.
Republicans sold their souls to this devil and now are forced to defend as right what they know full well is wrong. They must defend his incessant lying, clear incompetence and dubious dealings. What was once sacrilege among Republicans is now sacrosanct.
Got that? Donald Trump is a “devil.”
“It is in that context that Gianforte could be charged with assault and Republicans would pat him on the back instead of rapping him on the knuckles,” he said. “Republicans, blinded by fear and rage, thirsty for power, desperate for a reclamation and reassertion of racial power, have cast their lot with the great deceiver and all their previous deal-breakers are now negotiable.”
As a result of Blow’s twisted and biased screed, “The Gateway Degenerate” began trending on Twitter, prompting the usual outpouring of hate from the Left.
Republicans are just glad that a black man is no longer eating off the White House china
"The Gateway Degenerate"
— Vito Di Matteo (@Vext6) May 29, 2017
The Gateway Degenerate is flawed only in that it give far too much credit to the leaders of the GOP. They cultivated this hate for decades.
— William J Bryan (@NeoSilverite) May 29, 2017
Naturally, Blow conveniently omitted the repeated threats to murder Trump and the violence visited on his supporters. (For examples, click here, here, and here.)
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