How Much Do Liberals Loathe Donald Trump? An op-ed in The NY Times Gives a Clue

A liberal who supports a candidate with a Nazi tattoo ...

If you want to know how far some liberals are willing to go to register their fear and loathing of Donald Trump … read an opinion piece by Frank Bruni in the New York Times.

Here’s how his column begins: “Graham Platner isn’t my ideal Senate candidate. Not even close. I’m deeply troubled by the thinness of his political experience, by the primacy of raw anger in his appeal to voters and by the oddities and ugliness from a Nazi tattoo to a fondness for ‘gay’ and ‘gayest’ putdowns, in his not-so-distant past. It’s a lot to overlook. But if I lived in Maine, I’d vote for him in November.”

Frank Bruni is a thoughtful man of the left, one who is prepared to overlook Platner’s many, let’s call them …. shortcomings. Before we get to why he’s prepared to overlook so much, let’s lay out just what Bruni is willing to accept, reluctantly or otherwise.

Platner has said he was a communist. He said cops are bastards. He called people who post on line, “retarded.” He said war was “the most enjoyable experience of my life.” Working as a bartender he wondered “Why don’t black people tip?” And speaking about women who are concerned about sexual assault, he wrote that “Rape is a real thing. If you’re so worried about it … you might not get blacked out f****d up around people you aren’t comfortable with.”

Yes, Frank Bruni, that really is, as you put it, “a lot to overlook” — even though Platner has acknowledged that the posts were wrong, that they came during a dark time in his life, and he has since deleted them.