Writing for The Atlantic magazine, journalist David Brooks comments:
There’s a question that’s been bugging me for nearly a decade. How is it that half of America looks at Donald Trump and doesn’t find him morally repellent? He lies, cheats, steals, betrays, and behaves cruelly and corruptly, and more than 70 million Americans find him, at the very least, morally acceptable. Some even see him as heroic, admirable, and wonderful. What has brought us to this state of moral numbness?
Categories: Justice
in-sights.ca 
David Brooks has no morals to experience numbness. He has been justifying or dancing around the question of genocide in Gaza for the last 21 months. I guess it has been morally acceptable to massacre defenseless women, children and elderly Palestinians on daily basis in Gaza and always deny the undeniable.
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I would have to go back and look at old journals to explain, but I stopped reading Brooks some time ago. He calls himself a moderate conservative but I came to see him as a war monger who thought G.W. Bush had great policies for the Middle East. He cares about Israeli lives, but not about the people who have populated the region for millennia.
Nevertheless, Brooks is correct in his assessment of Trump who is a truly evil man.
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What can one say?
From my viewpoint, the USA has given up and reverted back to the corn pone days of Jim Crow, open political corruption, and the law mostly used as a cudgel against the poor, and those perceived to be “foreign”.
After the Kent State massacre, the Americans could not deal with official government murder and the politcans, seeing a wedge issue, slowly dumbed down the education system to prevent “college lawyers”, who knew more about the constitution than those in power, to upset the elites.
The Americans revered back to Hollywood History and mind numbing television to pretend that the USA was great.
As government allowed corporations to move their industrial plants overseas, poverty and homelessness spiraled and the middle class was sinking faster than the Titanic.
Lack of opportunity, jobs and education plus the ability of the media to spread fake news and alternative facts, created a new underclass, who wanted to return to the 1930’s era, which they perceived to be better than today.
This and the new American evangelical religion where “god” had been replaced by the dollar, had now made worship of money and wealth morally acceptable.
Then came Trump, a convicted felon; sexual predator; and all around grifter as the poster boy for the new American.
And as they say, the rest is history, as the Americans have got what they wanted and sadly the American Empire has come to the end and the world, which once depended on the USA as a sort of moral compass, is adrift in the new age of strong man authoritarian rule.
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Funny Mr Brooks should ask..
“How is it that half of America looks at Donald Trump and doesn’t find him morally repellent?”
This may help. Or
Fun with numbers.
Not the adulation the President expected? Not to worry. The Tennis Gods instructed US media to self-censor.
“We ask all broadcasters to refrain from showcasing any disruptions to the President’s attendance in any capacity,” the United States Tennis Association (USTA) said in a memo.
Mr, Trump’s actual reception? Not the universal acclaim spin doctors prefer. See here:
Meanwhile in besieged Washington? A massive anti-trump march. If nowhere else see here:
To counter negative polls VP, Mr Vance, cited a Daily Mail effort entitled “Trump silences critics with highest EVER approval rating as he cracks down on crime”
Dated 4 Sept, found here:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15062999/donald-trump-poll-approval-rating.html
This Daily Mail poll sample size?
“The poll of 867 registered voters was conducted from August 21 – September 1 and has a 3.3 percent margin of error.”
Unfortunately on the Daily Mail site there’s an earlier article entitled, “A key part of the Trump coalition begins to crumble as the president hits his lowest approval rating”
Dated 19 August, found here:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15014653/trump-coalition-begins-crumble-president-lowest-approval-rating.html
Should we compare poll sample sizes?
“The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll of nearly 4,500 Americans found that the president is carrying a 40 percent approval rating.”
Reuters poll = 4,500
Daily Mail poll = 837
But both are equally valid?
2025 US Population? 347,275,807
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A 29 Aug Newsweek report makes the latest Trump tariff policy backfire seem trivial. Will 1.4 billion Indians just stop consuming Pepsi and eating at McDonalds? If so, so what? Is there more?
https://www.newsweek.com/india-boycott-us-products-pepsi-mcdonalds-2121498
“A number of major American multinationals are facing calls for a boycott, again over anger at President Donald Trump’s tariffs.”
“The latest calls come from Baba Ramdev, an Indian yoga guru and business owner with almost 3 million followers on Instagram. In remarks to Indian media outlets, Ramdev, a well-known public figure in the country, recently said American brands should be “completely boycotted” over Trump’s decision to impose a 50 percent duty on Indian goods.”
“”Not a single Indian should be seen at the counters of Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Subway, KFC, or McDonald’s. There should be such a massive boycott,” Ramdev continued, as quoted and translated by The Economic Times. He added, “If this happens, chaos will ensue in America.””
“Ramdev’s call reflects a groundswell of anti-U.S. sentiment that has swept India in recent weeks, with grassroots campaigners and lawmakers expressing outrage at the recent tariff hike, and the country’s leaders advocating economic self-reliance in response.”
Why the reaction?
“Trump had originally planned to place a 25 percent tariff on Indian imports, down from the 26 percent “reciprocal” rate announced in early April.”
“On August 6, however, Trump signed an executive order doubling the tariff over India’s continued purchases of Russian Federation oil.”
While President Trump may deflect responsibility and claim damages are temporary that’s not what another 6 Sept Newsweek report indicates.
https://www.newsweek.com/us-bands-warn-anti-american-sentiment-hurting-sales-2125050
“Anti-Americanism has been on the rise globally, driven largely by the trade policies of the current administration that impacted countries’ views as a critical threat to their exports and international trade more generally.”
“Calls to boycott the American economy have gained traction in Canada since early this year—also sparked by Trump’s “51st state” remarks—and have already impacted tourism to the U.S. and the sale of American products. These have recently spread to India as a result of the 50 percent duties placed on its goods, with lawmakers and activists urging less dependence on American multinationals and a greater emphasis on economic self-sufficiency.”
Countries not likely interested in American goods and services?
In 2025, the projected populations are as follows:
India: Approximately 1.46 billion.
China: Approximately 1.42 billion.
What could make things worse? The latest job creation report numbers were a tiny bit off.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-employment-falls-by-911000-in-government-revision-revealing-weaker-than-reported-jobs-market-144822652.html
“The US economy employed 911,000 fewer people than originally reported as of March 2025, providing stark new evidence that the labor market was downshifting long before this summer.”
“The data covers the period from April 2024 to March 2025 and trims the average monthly jobs gains seen during this period (roughly the last 10 months of Joe Biden’s presidency and the first two months of Trump’s) from a monthly average of 147,000 to about 71,000.”
Quoting The White House FOX NEWS strenuously disagreed.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/white-house-blasts-bureau-labor-statistics-following-largest-downward-correction-history
“The Trump administration on Tuesday blasted the Labor Department’s annual jobs revisions, which revealed the U.S. added hundreds of thousands fewer jobs than first thought – the largest correction on record.”
“The revisions, compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, showed that previous jobs reports were overstated by 911,000. The latest adjustment – on the higher end of Wall Street’s expectations – comes as President Donald Trump steps up his calls for the Federal Reserve to cut rates to stimulate the U.S. economy.”
So Much Winning!
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https://www.rawstory.com/tyler-robinson-leftwing/
In his own words
Mr Trump explains his Drug Price Solution using his New Math.
It works like this. If you pay twice what you paid before that means you’re paying 1,000% less.
“Trump: You understand and we will be reducing drug costs over the next year by not 50 or 60% but by 1000%… Because if you think of a $10 pill — it will be raised up from 10 to 20 because it’s the world versus us, the world is the bigger place.. so it will go from 10 to 20… for them which is bearable. And it will go from 10 to 20 for us.”
Seventy million Americans chose this man as their President.
Twice.
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https://www.rawstory.com/tom-homan-jail-bribe-scheme/
“”The most corrupt administration we have ever seen” is how Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D) reacted to a report that Donald Trump’s border czar had accepted a $50,000 bribe from undercover agents.”
“Raw Story reported on Saturday about a MSNBC exclusive in which the outlet claimed that Homan had previously been investigated for accepting $50,000 from undercover FBI agents. That caused U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) to issue a stinging four-word response to Homan.”
“It also caused a senator to declare that Attorney General Pam Bondi “knew” about the reported bribery operation.”
https://www.rawstory.com/tom-homan-investigated-undercover-fbi/
“Tom Homan, U.S. President Donald Trump’s border czar, was reportedly investigated for accepting $50,000 from undercover FBI agents.
“Carol Leonnig and Ken Dilanian of MSNBC over the weekend reported that Homan was under investigation and that, “The FBI and Justice officials closed the investigation, which a Justice Department appointee had called a ‘deep state’ probe in early 2025.”
“In an undercover operation last year, the FBI recorded Tom Homan, now the White House border czar, accepting $50,000 in cash after indicating he could help the agents — who were posing as business executives — win government contracts in a second Trump administration, according to multiple people familiar with the probe and internal documents reviewed by MSNBC,” the outlet reported.
“The FBI and the Justice Department planned to wait to see whether Homan would deliver on his alleged promise once he became the nation’s top immigration official. But the case indefinitely stalled soon after Donald Trump became president again in January, according to six sources familiar with the matter. In recent weeks, Trump appointees officially closed the investigation, after FBI Director Kash Patel requested a status update on the case, two of the people said.”
“According to the report, “It’s unclear what reasons FBI and Justice Department officials gave for shutting down the investigation” into the man who Trump has leaned on to accomplish his immigration raid goals.”
“”The federal investigation was launched in western Texas in the summer of 2024 after a subject in a separate investigation claimed Homan was soliciting payments in exchange for awarding contracts should Trump win the presidential election, according to an internal Justice Department summary of the probe reviewed by MSNBC and people familiar with the case,” the report states.”
Sources.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/09/20/tom-homan-trump-doj-border-investigation/86271080007/
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/border-czar-tom-homan-was-investigated-by-doj-for-potential-bribery-msnbc-reports/ar-AA1MYpvL?ocid=BingNewsSerp
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5514153-fbi-clears-homan-contract-probe/
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/tom-homan-border-czar-bribery-investigation-b2830605.html
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-border-czar-tom-homan-caught-on-camera-taking-cash-in-fbi-sting/
https://www.alternet.org/tom-homan-scandal-trump/
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