After seven years of Donald Trump being America's main character, we've developed a tedious routine to react to fresh reminders of Trump's sympathies for neo-Nazis and other fascists. First, Trump gaslights in response, pretending any racism is being projected onto him by the "fake news." Other Republicans run from reporters or play dumb about what's going on. GOP base voters, who either fully agree with Trump's racist views or don't care enough to hold it against him, dig in their heels and refuse to reconsider their cult-like worship of the former president. Eventually, the media realizes, once again, that having an overt white nationalist leading the GOP doesn't actually move the needle much for their horse race coverage, and so they too give up on the story — at least until the next dust-up, when we start the cycle all over again.
The latest reminder of Trump's racial views: He had dinner with Ye, formerly Kanye West (whom Vox dubs "a poster child for antisemitism and white nationalism") and Ye's new Holocaust-denying buddy Nick Fuentes. As I write this, we're in the middle of the process where Trump pretends it's an accident he keeps buddying up with people who espouse neo-Nazi ideologies. We're also going through the motions of the media expressing outrage at GOP silence, while Republicans lay low, knowing this too will pass.
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