Why some GOP candidates don’t act as aggrieved as Donald Trump
Spoiler: they’re not white
One of Donald Trump’s signature political achievements, which like most of them owes to his genius for shamelessness, has been to convert self-pity from a Republican vice into a virtue. He has likewise turned claims of victimhood inside out, from confessions of weakness into boasts. “I am a victim,” Mr Trump declared twice in announcing his present bid for the presidency. He has called one source of his suffering “the greatest witch hunt in the history of our country”, and another, simply, “a lynching”. It may be the only Trump whine he has ever managed to sell, but, as he exhorts his supporters to feel sorry for themselves and to rage at their oppressors, and presents himself as their persecuted billionaire champion, they gulp it all down.
This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “Keeper of the faith”
United States September 16th 2023
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- Why some GOP candidates don’t act as aggrieved as Donald Trump
From the September 16th 2023 edition
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