'Depraved indifference': Conservative columnist lays waste to 'rotten' Trump supporters

President Donald Trump’s approval rating has been stuck in the high 30s/low 40s for most of his second term, suggesting that millions of Americans are unfazed by his many scandals. Earlier this week, conservative commentator Jonathan V. Last from The Bulwark argued these people are “unbelievably stupid,” and was met with reader protests, so on Friday he clarified: He is actually accusing them of the “civil version of depraved indifference.”

“Maybe the problem here is my use of the word ‘stupid’ as a catch-all when what I’m really talking about is a basket of failings,” Last opined. “There are people who understand what Trumpism is and affirmatively want a post-liberal society. And then there are those who would say that they do not want authoritarianism, but who threw in with Trump anyway.” Within that latter group, Last identified four categories: People who “by accident” are ignorant of current events; people who deliberately “choose not to understand” those events; those who “choose toxic information sources and so have a warped understanding of the world”; and those who prioritize partisan or other “tribal” preferences over stopping Trump.

“Perhaps ‘stupid’ is the wrong descriptor and ‘rotten’ is more accurate,” Last argued. “A voter who would rather stare at his or her Facebook feed for two hours a day than read one or two stories from the front page of ‘The Atlantic’ is rotten. A voter who thinks that trans athletes are a more pressing issue for the federal government than the breakdown of the rule of law is rotten. A voter who does not want to understand the relationship between inflation and interest rates is rotten. A voter who does not care to know that the percentage of federal funding that went to USAID was tiny — and that the number of lives lost because of the destruction of USAID is huge — is rotten.”

He concluded, “What we are talking about is the civic version of depraved indifference.”

Last is not the only conservative to assail the thinking of Trump supporters. Former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) explained on his Substack in February that people in MAGA who defend Trump despite his belligerence toward Greenland and Venezuela and invasion of Iran are acting like members of a “cult.”

“And you don’t like when people call you a cult, Trump voters?” Walsh said. “What else are people to think when you voted for Trump to get us the hell out of wars around the world, and instead he gets us involved in wars around the world and starts new wars, and you still sing his praises and support him? What are we to think, MAGA, but that you are a cult?”

He added, “You’ve got no argument against people calling you a cult. And if he takes us to war against Iran, and you clap and applaud and throw him flowers, Trump supporters, I will be at the front of the parade calling you a cult.”

Meanwhile George F. Will, a conservative columnist for The Washington Post who advised President Ronald Reagan, argued Trump supporters deliberately ignore common sense and undeniable evidence when accepting the president’s claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

“Donald Trump’s belief in widespread fraud in the casting and counting of 2020 ballots is entailed by his belief that it is theoretically impossible for him to lose at anything,” Will explained. “His certitude infects millions of Americans, some of whom think it inconceivable that he could ever be mistaken. Others doubt that anyone could win the presidency while obsessing about a complex conspiracy for which there is no evidence.”

Pointing out that “eight conservatives (two former Republican senators, three former federal appellate judges, a former Republican solicitor general, and two Republican election law specialists)” analyzed “all 187 counts in the 64 court challenges filed in multiple states by Trump and his supporters,” Will observed that “Trump’s side prevailed in only one, Pennsylvania, involving far too few votes to change the state’s result.”

He concluded, “Trump’s batting average? .016. In Arizona, the most exhaustively scrutinized state, a private firm selected by Trump’s advocates confirmed Trump’s loss, finding 99 additional Biden votes and 261 fewer Trump votes.” Therefore Will wrote of Trump, “The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.”