WAR CRIMINALS ARE TRUMP'S ANTI-VINDMANS

Democrats and other Trump critics just spent a week praising impeachment witnesses, including Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, and now President Trump finds some government workers he thinks are heroes.

If Donald Trump gets his wish, he’ll soon take the three convicted or accused war criminals he spared from consequence on the road as special guests in his re-election campaign, according to two sources who have heard Trump discuss their potential roles for the 2020 effort.

... Two people tell The Daily Beast they’ve heard Trump talk about how he’d like to have the now-cleared Clint Lorance, Matthew Golsteyn, or Edward Gallagher show up at his 2020 rallies, or even have a moment on stage at his renomination convention in Charlotte next year. Right-wing media have portrayed all three as martyrs brought down by “political correctness” within the military.

There's the real contrast between our two nations: Yes, it's rural versus urban/suburban, and yes it's blue collar versus white collar, but it's also whether you feel inclined to cheer on midlevel career civil diplomats and deskbound military personnel who use brainwork to help keep America safe ... or whether your heroes are action-movie clichés come to life, "bad boys" who "don't play by the rules" because not playing by the rules is perceived as the only way to avoid apocalyptic consequences.

If that's your worldview, then Bill Taylor, George Kent, Marie Yovanovitch, and Fiona Hill aren't admirable people -- they're the cliché "bureaucrats" who try to prevent the lone-wolf hero from doing what he and everyone in the theater know is the right thing.

Vindman is a tougher case -- he's a wounded, decorated soldier. That's why the right had to rhetorically emasculate him -- recall the American Greatness piece I wrote about after Vindman's testimony, in which he was called "Lt. Col. Polly PrissyPants" and described as a "prissy little princess" and a "butt-hurt" "little snitch" who "sassed" Devin Nunes and was offered a job in the Ukraininan government because he had "an 'open for business' sign flashing" (I'll leave it up to you to imagine what exactly the American Greatness's Liz Sheld wanted you to think Vindman had left "open").

I don't know how many Americans will respond to Trump's war criminals. I continue to believe that it's a mistake for Trump to put so much effort into selling himself to voters who already love him and are certain to vote for him. But he knows what his fans like -- and it's the exact opposite of what you heard from the witnesses last week.