The presidency of Donald John Trump has, it’s fair to say, been not without controversy in much the same way that the oceans have not been without a certain humidity.
However, he threatened to hit a new level of bizarre during his performance at the summit with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, where he dismissed the advice of his intelligence agencies in favour of believing Putin’s insistence that of course he totes didn’t do any meddling in the US election, perish the very thought!
“[Spy chief] Dan Coats came to me and some others, they said they think it’s Russia. I have [asked] President Putin, he just said it’s not Russia,” Trump bafflingly said. “I will say this, I don’t see any reason why it would be.”
And given that Trumpism is wrapped in a crispy layer of over-the-top American patriotism, what did the the pro-Trump camp make of their president dissing his own government in favour of supporting Vladimir Putin?
Short answer: it didn’t go unnoticed, but it seems unlikely to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Yeah, the camel seems fine.
Sure, a lot of Republican politicians – many of which are on their way out the door, like the retiring Paul Ryan and the cancer-battling John McCain, were happy to let their displeasure be felt.
McCain tweeted that it was “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory”, enator Jeff Flake went with “shameful”. Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted it was a “bad day for the US”, to which Senator Bob Corker tweeted “This was a very good day for President Putin.”
I've seen Russian intelligence manipulate many people over my professional career and I never would have thought that the US President would become one of the ones getting played by old KGB hands.
— Rep. Will Hurd (@HurdOnTheHill) July 16, 2018
While most news sites went into overdrive on Trump’s oddly obsequious performance, even Trump’s most stalwart supporters, Fox News, had some unexpected critiques of the president – such as Trish Regan unexpectedly describing him as “unpatriotic”.
Unpatriotic. Don’t let a bully bully you on the international stage. POTUS should have defended us. https://t.co/dxg0UrBQvW
— Trish Regan (@trish_regan) July 16, 2018
Even Brietbart, the alt.right quasi-news site that is generally unwavering in its support of Trump was even oddly subdued in the wake of the summit, with headlines from outgoing Republican senator Paul Ryan that “Russia is not our ally” and that Trump should have been stronger.
But within hours they were claiming the summit had in fact been a brilliant victory and were back to the important stuff, like claiming that those testifying in the Russian hacking investigation were all part of a deep state conspiracy to overthrow the president, bless.
The other place where Trump’s support has been unwavering, however, is on the Reddit thread The Donald, where his defenders have been ignoring the performance of their beloved leader and focussing on how the whole Russian collusion thing was a witch hunt. So staying impressively on message, at least?
In fact, for the most part this was a real time demonstration of how rationalisation works: people that support Trump and consider themselves patriots were initially confused by the apparent signs of national disloyalty, but found way to either ignore them or justify them.
TL;DR version: yeah, that impeachment isn’t around the corner.