The MAGA faithful are steering the US towards a "nihilistic" tone after accepting Donald Trump's recent statements, a Nobel Prize winner has warned.
Award-winning economist Paul Krugman suggested the approval which some had for Trump's statement on the death of film director Rob Reiner is a sign of a vicious turn in the US. Writing in his Substack, Krugman says he was both shocked but not surprised to see Trump's comment on the death of Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner.
Krugman wrote, "It wasn’t news to me that the president of the United States is a vicious shmuck." What did surprise Krugman, though, is how quickly the president's statement was accepted by his most ardent supporters. Trump has gone beyond what was expected of him when it comes to hateful rhetoric, Krugman claimed.
He wrote, "Now, Trump is purposely breaking norms and engaging in open expressions of hate and bigotry. And among a set of people, this serves as a signal that it’s now socially acceptable to do the same – look, for example, at the extremely racist and Nazi-praising chats among young Republican activists leaked to Politico."
"While these young MAGA-landers were outed and chastised, it’s clear that within MAGA-world emulating Trump’s hate-filled rhetoric is considered a way of signaling that you are loyal to the movement. And it’s also clear that if Trumpism persists, we are facing a future in which such behavior is no longer publicly unacceptable."
"Because Trump’s remarks about the murder of the Reiners weren’t just his personal venting. They were a symptom and a symbol of his systematic destruction of our norms, our humanism, just as he tried to destroy the norms of American democracy on January 6, 2021. It’s a profoundly nihilistic vision for America."
The Truth Social post Trump made shortly after Reiner's death was roundly criticized by political commentators. Mona Charen suggested the post from the president, which claimed Reiner and his wife had a "mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME" was a sign of how he used violence.
Charen wrote, "So powerful is his thirst for political violence that he not only fails to recoil from it when it breaks out; he fantasizes that it’s taking place even when it isn’t."
"There’s zero reason to believe Reiner’s murder had anything to do with his political opposition to Trump. But the president says this is true for the same reason he says many false things are true: because he wants it to be true."
