Has Trump Finally Done the Unforgivable?

Donald Trump famously boasted that he wouldn't lose any votes if he stood out in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shot someone, and it was probably true.  His followers would just conclude that if murder upset the liberals that much, it must be good.  So has Trump finally done the one thing that his followers will never forgive -- made liberals happy?

It's too soon to say.  However, to the extent that anyone is disillusioned by Trump, I can only say this.  Never do business with a crook.  They can't be trusted.

It was never any secret when Trump was running for President that he was a crook.  His habit of stiffing contractors got ample publicity.  He never denied being a crook.  In fact, he made it one of his selling points.  He had more experience in gaming the system than anyone else, he argued, so he would know how to stop other people from gaming it and make it work for the little guy.  And he proudly boasted that after ripping off innocent people, he was now ready to rip off all those people who deserved it, the ones who had been ripping off America all these years.

Really, no one should have fallen for it.  I do not agree with the proposition that you can't cheat an honest man.  Many clever cons are have fooled the most sophisticated targets.  To say that you can't cheat an honest man is simply victim blaming.  It is true, however, that people who know that someone is a con man and trust him to con only other people are setting themselves up to be taken in, and it is really hard to have much sympathy for them.  People who make their living cheating others are most unlikely to have a code of ethics about who they can cheat.  Anyone is fair game.  To support Donald Trump because of his skill as a crook because you trust him to deploy that skill only against people who deserve it is to assume that cheating and deceiving are simply morally neutral skills, rather than clear marks of character.  To assume that Trump, after regularly cheating the innocent in the past, can be trusted to cheat only the guilty in the future is to ignore the most blatant evidence of who he is, evidence that was looking everyone in the face.

In short, never do business with a crook.  They can't be trusted.

And, to any and all Democrats who think they can make a productive relationship with Trump -- this applies to you too.