There is nothing more loathsome to the average upper-crust liberal intellectual than an American holding Donald Trump’s book in one arm and the Bible in the other. At least, that’s what the stock image on Matt Bai’s column in the Washington Post tells us.Matt Bai — political columnist and one-time screenwriter for a DOA film about Gary Hart called The Front Runner — is going to give the Left all the justification it needs to continue their ongoing hate campaign against ordinary Americans.He writes:But now? After the violent sacking of the Capitol? After Trump’s promise to behave like a dictator (well, okay, I guess if it’s only for a day)? After eight years of bigotry and baseness and flat-out lies?To say that Trump’s voters aren’t aware of these things, or don’t fully comprehend them, or are firmly in the grip of misinformation, is to say that they’re simply fools. And I’ve met way too many rural Americans to believe that. If they’re ignorant, then their ignorance, at this point, is willful.It’s a rebuttal to a column by Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times pleading with the Left to find their humanity when it comes to Trump and MAGA.It isn’t enough that Kristof writes:By all means denounce Trump, but don’t stereotype and belittle the nearly half of Americans who have sided with him.We can’t separate them, argues Bai. If they support Trump then they are the named enemy. They are not worthy of our empathy, at least not until — he hopes — Kamala Harris wins the presidency. Then, they might thaw out and treat them like they belong in the country they love. Don’t bet on it. Bai writes:These voters don’t support Trump because they labor under some illusion that he’s going to rescue their communities — not anymore. They support him because he’s willing to blow up the country if it means teaching insufferable intellectuals a lesson, and so are they. It’s the same vengeful impulse that leads to autocracy in unequal societies all over the world. It is, at its core, unpatriotic, no matter how many flags you fly, or how many ways you try to rationalize it.Are you starting to see why The Front Runner flopped?The Frontrunner is a rescue operation for Gary Hart’s legacy. It was the mean old media, you see, a media that has suddenly grown a conscience because now they don’t do their jobs of chasing stories lest they weaken a weak candidate like Gary Hart or Kamala Harris. Instead, they spread propaganda on why America should hate and fear Trump and his supporters lest they be accused of “normalizing” them.The Front Runner was bad for the same reason The Washington Post and the New York Times are unreadable: their bias suffocates any practical purpose they might have otherwise had. It’s like spending time with the kid who sits in the front of the class, always raising his hand with the right answer. After a while, you overdose on the sanctimony. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.