Silence Speaks Volumes
Former President Trump apparently had dinner at Mar-A-Lago last week with Kanye West, who has been criticized recently for anti-Semitic statements, and Nick Fuentes, who CNN calls a “white nationalist and Holocaust denier”. Trump himself has been distancing himself from it a bit, saying Fuentes was West’s guest and he didn’t really know him.
Regardless, you are known by the company you keep, and the overall optics were not the best.
The White House was quick to criticize the former president for hosting the pair for dinner. But very few on the Republican side have said anything.
Before we automatically condemn them for their silence, we should consider a few things.
First, those in the GOP who have spoken out against the meeting are hoping this is finally the thing the rids them of Trump, and if not, they can plant themselves firmly in the “see, I told you so” camp, hoping to one day regain the power they saw diminish with the rise of Trump.
And of course, some in the party who have been silent are simply hoping to not draw Trump’s ire, because he still has a fair amount of clout with a lot of voters.
But others in the Republican ranks who are silent may in fact have a lot more in common with their GOP brethren who have been critical of the dinner. They’d love to be rid of Trump too, but need the voters he delivers…so they secretly hope some scandal or set of headlines drops his popularity, but they don’t want to be the ones saying anything. Trump and Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell already hate each other, so they figure why not let Mitch take the lead so they don’t have to?
If every politician who had a meeting or had a photo taken with someone who later turns out to be less than stellar was tarred by that, there’d be no politicians left. Maybe that would be a good thing, a fresh start across the board.
I’m casting no aspersions on either Ye or Fuentes…I don’t know enough about them or their views. And I don’t trust how CNN characterizes people or views, nor do I trust predictable public statements from political enemies of a person in question.
But if you are in the public eye, see something wrong, and don’t say anything—well, that’s a pretty cowardly path to take.
