‘Manifestly cruel': GOP's 'willful ignorance' hammered by Bush speechwriter

Donald Trump has effectively trapped his MAGA base into willful ignorance with increasingly “preposterous” and “malicious” lies, a former speechwriter for President W. Bush argued Tuesday.

Trump’s recent claim that the FBI’s search warrant of Mar-a-Lago contained proof of an assassination plot against him is just one of the lies political writer Peter Wehner argued Tuesday in The Atlantic that proves his case for “willful ignorance.”

To put it in simpler terms, Wehner argued Trump’s lies are too ridiculous to be truly believed.

“It’s choosing not to know,” Wehner wrote. “Doing so fends off the psychological distress of the realization that they’ve been lying to themselves and to others.”

MAGA supporters first stuck their psychological fingers in their ears as early as 2016, and just as parents across the globe have warned for centuries, they’ve gotten stuck that way, Wehner contends.

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“Since 2016 there’s been a ratchet effect, each conspiracy theory getting more preposterous and more malicious,” Wehner writes. “Things that Trump supporters wouldn’t believe or accept in the past have since become loyalty tests. Election denialism is one example.” But the presidential speechwriter uses an economic metaphor rather than a comparison to a willful toddler.

Wehner admits to a struggle between his desire to respect political opinions that differ from his own and outrage at beliefs he finds fundamentally unethical.

He compares MAGA values to those of segregationists in the 1960s who argued the Old-Testament-held proof that Black people should not enjoy the same rights as white people.

“The lies that MAGA world parrots are so manifestly untrue, and the Trump ethic is so manifestly cruel, that they are difficult to set aside,” he writes.

“Some movements are overt and malignant enough that to willingly be a part of them becomes ethically problematic.”

Wehner has kind words for MAGA supporters he says that, being human, are just as capable of kindness in their personal lives as any others.

But that doesn’t negate for Wehner the inherent immorality of a vote for Trump in the 2024 presidential election.

“They are giving not just their vote but their allegiance to a man and movement that have done great harm to our country and its ideals, and which seek to inflict even deeper wounds in the years ahead,” he concludes.

“A generation from now, and probably sooner, it will be obvious to everyone that Trump supporters can’t claim they didn’t know.”