Donald Trump is already at it again. Only a few weeks after the former president kicked off his latest presidential campaign, he dove headlong into controversy, hosting dinner at his Mar-a-Lago home with the antisemitism-spewing Ye and the white supremacist activist Nick Fuentes as his guests.
Trump released at least three statements trying to downplay the occasion after reporting on it emerged.
Trump is also already deploying a familiar — and dangerous — strategy for justifying his association with prominent bigots. Using a paper-thin layer of plausible deniability, he's forcing mainstream media to trip up over the story of his alleged intentions while signaling his own continuing commitment to illiberal white nationalist extremism.
Understanding Trump's Mar-a-Lago dinner is fairly straightforward. Just weeks after Ye made hateful, threatening comments toward Jews ("I’m going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE") Trump invited him to a meal. One of the attendees was Fuentes, who, among other things, was an attendee at the 2017 white supremacist Unite the Right rally in Virginia, denies the Holocaust and advocates for the racist great replacement theory. Trump chose to break bread with these people, and it's not hard to see why: They all share overlapping visions for what ails the world, and how it would be improved. (Trump reportedly said Fuentes "gets me" after Fuentes encouraged him to ad-lib more in his speeches; it should not be hard to guess what it is about the impulsive...
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