Opinion | The Dangerous Appeal of Cruelty

They view you as weak unless you’re cruel. We have got to stop, stop confusing assholery for courage or assholery for conviction. I see this on both sides of the spectrum, especially amongst the angriest part of the base, is they’re looking at somebody who’s going to give them, who’s basically extending the middle finger to the world and demonstrating just this raw fury and anger, often in a way that’s deeply cruel and dishonest and casting that as well: They are a fighter, OK, they’re a fighter. Well, that is not the only model for fighting, guys. Look throughout history, if you’re going to look at the people who led in difficult times, who demonstrated in history has vindicated for their courage and their resolve and their conviction, often they were people who went out of their way to try to extend olive branches, to win people over who are wavering, who went, who had to demonstrate a tremendous amount of moral character. This is something that is a huge problem that I’ve seen on the right for the last decade, and that is, they don’t — They view you as weak unless you’re cruel.