Apparently "Extreme Vetting" Doesn't Apply to Trump Himself

by Deacon Blues

I am not as dismissive as other are about Trump’s anti-terrorism messaging and proposals yesterday. He clearly is playing directly to fear, so there shouldn’t be any surprise at the tone and rhetoric he employed. Nor is it stupid to frame the challenge in terms of the Cold War because Americans in fear can more easily grasp something they know and have experienced than something illusory that requires nuance and under-the-radar diligence and ongoing covert action. Plus, Hillary’s “let’s work together” rhetoric doesn’t translate as well on national security issues as it does on economic issues, so every time she avoids sounding like Margaret Thatcher on national security, she hands another day to Trump.

Trump clearly and smartly moved away from his “Ban the Muslims” barking with his call for “extreme vetting”, although his call for ideological screening is by his own admission “extreme”.

But I can’t take his proposals seriously when he himself clearly doesn’t do “extreme vetting” when it comes to his campaign manager or his surrogates. How much extreme vetting did he do before selecting a campaign manager with ties to Vladimir Putin? How much extreme vetting did Trump do to align himself with race-baiting surrogates, or surrogates so batsh*t crazy that they can so easily trash the memory of nearly 3,000 dead Americans by ignoring that they died at all? How much extreme vetting did Trump do before picking a serial sexual predator to be his debate advisor?

Clearly, for Trump, "extreme vetting" applies to brown people but not to his friends.