THEY REALLY THINK TRUMP AND CO. ARE ACTING IN GOOD FAITH

In The New Republic, Greg Sargent has a story about Hispanic voters in Reading, Pennsylvania, where they make up 70% of the electorate. Kamala Harris won Reading by a 65%-35% margin, but that was a noticeably weaker showing than Joe Biden's 72%-27% victory in the city in 2020. Sargent thinks the Hispanic voters who abandoned Democrats did so because they thought Donald Trump, the famous businessman, would make life more affordable for them. But there were also voters who thought he'd make life better for undocumented immigrants. Reading's Democratic mayor, Eddie Morán, told Sargent that during the campaign

signs saying PUERTO RICANS FOR TRUMP and DOMINICANS FOR TRUMP began to appear.

Among these Dominicans, Morán regularly found that any concerns about Trump’s immigration policies were outweighed by perceptions of his economic prowess. Indeed, that led some Dominicans to develop a particularly hopeful view of Trump. Some came to believe that when Trump talked about not wanting “illegals” in the country, he was really telegraphing that he might pursue some sort of amnesty for the undocumented who don’t merit removal.

Why would anyone believe this?

As Jamelle Bouie says,

I've seen it argued that Kamala Harris ran a godawful campaign because no competent politician could possibly have lost to someone who's as repulsive as Trump. But millions of people don't believe Trump is repulsive. They hear his hateful attacks and assume they're all aimed at other people. They watch him sell his snake oil and really believe he's selling a miracle product that will change their lives for the better.

Smart people who should know better feel he's a decent, well-meaning person. Hagan Scotten is a conservative Republican who led the team investigating Eric Adams in the Southern District of New York. He's one of several lawyers who have now resigned because they refused to endorse a quid-pro-quo deal dismissing federal charges against Adams in exchange for his cooperation with the Trump administration on immigration. Here's an excerpt from Scotten's resignation letter, addressed to Emil Bove, the acting deputy attorney general:

“Some will view the mistake you are committing here in the light of their generally negative views of the new administration,” he wrote. “I do not share those views. I can even understand how a chief executive whose background is in business and politics might see the contemplated dismissal-with-leverage as a good, if distasteful, deal.” But any such arrangement would be contrary to the law, he wrote.

Imagine being so naive about Trump that you think he finds this deal "distasteful." Imagine thinking he went along with it only reluctantly, even though he'd much rather maintain the highest moral principles.

People who should know better assume that Trump surrogates are also acting in good faith and with the best intentions. Case in point: Mississippi senator Roger Wicker, a strong supporter of Ukraine.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made a “rookie mistake” when he said a return to Ukraine’s pre-war borders was “unrealistic,” Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker said Friday....

“Hegseth is going to be a great defense secretary, although he wasn’t my choice for the job,” the Mississippi Republican told POLITICO on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. “But he made a rookie mistake in Brussels and he’s walked back some of what he said but not that line."

"I don’t know who wrote the speech — it is the kind of thing Tucker Carlson could have written, and Carlson is a fool," Wicker said, referring to the pro-Putin broadcaster.

Dude, that's the policy! It's not an unfortunate misstatement of what the administration believes, written by a misguided underling. It's what Trump wants -- and Hegseth, too.

We look at Trump and the people who surround him and see corruption, deceit, brutality, and a willingness to sell out the country. But millions of people believe he's the selfless, patriotic public servant he claims to be. He talks about his good intentions so relentlessly that many people fall for it, even though to the rest of us he's obviously full of shit. I don't know how people who are so easy to fool can possibly function in the world. But there were enough of them to decide the election.