Don Jr's latest 'depravity' shows he's 'a chip off the old block': Trump biographer

On Tuesday, writing for CNN, Trump biographer Michael D'Antonio slammed Donald Trump Jr. for posting a crude visual gag about the violent attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband in San Francisco.

"Donald Trump Jr. must have thought he was being funny. After a man invaded House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home in San Francisco and beat her 82-year-old husband with a hammer, former President Donald Trump’s eldest son posted a photo of a hammer and men’s briefs on social media," wrote D'Antonio. "'I’ve got my Paul Pelosi Halloween costume ready,' the caption read, apparently a reference to an erroneous report, since corrected, that the attacker was in his underwear."

This sort of "depravity", wrote D'Antonio, proves that he is a "chip off the old block" in that it's identical to that of former President Donald Trump, who has a long history of joking about violence against political opponents, reporters, and various other people he doesn't respect.

"For years, the elder Trump has voiced his support for violence," wrote D'Antonio. "In 2018, he called a GOP candidate who attacked a journalist 'my kind of guy.' In the wake of protests over George Floyd’s death in 2020, he tweeted, 'When the looting starts, the shooting starts,' reviving racist remarks from the 1960s. As recently as October 22, the former President reveled a crowd by joking that reporters could be forced to reveal confidential sources if judges would put them in jail, where they’ll become 'the bride of another prisoner.'"

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Nor are the Trumps alone in their glee over violence, D'Antonio noted — because figures throughout the Republican Party are following their lead, including Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin joking at a rally that they'll soon send Pelosi "back to be with him."

"A landmark essay from the 1990s called 'Defining Deviancy Down' had disturbing foresight about the consequences of behavior such as Trump’s coarse and hateful speech," wrote D'Antonio. "Published by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, himself a sociologist, it argued that societies can only police a certain level of deviance. As that resource is exhausted, what was once unacceptable is now tolerated. 'We are,' as the late Moynihan put it, 'getting used to a lot of behavior that is not good for us.' Those words have rarely been truer."