Ex-Trumper: People keep lowering the bar so Trump won't look terrible

A former supporter of President Donald Trump argued on his Thursday podcast that Americans are lowering the bar for the Republican leader's benefit.

“We — all of us — hold Donald Trump to a pathetically low standard we've never held any other politician to,” former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) said on his Substack on Thursday. “We hold Trump to a standard we would hold a two-year-old to if he were in the White House, if he were a public figure. Republican, Democrat, Independent — none of us hold any other politician to this standard. We never have.”

He added, “We've never let any other politician — any other public figure — get away with everything we let Trump get away with. If another politician lied even a hundredth of the amount that Trump lies, he'd be in trouble. If any other political figure said, on a daily basis, the dishonest, idiotic, stupid, cruel, un-American, ignorant, dangerous, reckless, sociopathic things that Trump says and does on a regular basis, that politician would be done — Republican or Democrat.”

Walsh elaborated on how Trump repeatedly lies or says offensive things, but then is defended by people who say he did not mean it, did not understand it or was taken out of context.

“What other political figure have we ever said that about?” Walsh asked. He pointed out that Trump is even defended by his supporters when he says he does not care about Americans’ “financial situation” as the economy struggles, or his open affection for dictators.

This is not the first time Walsh has called out Trump supporters for lowering the bar to defend the president they back. In February he denounced Trump supporters as being in a “cult” because they forgave him for flip-flopping on his 2024 campaign promise to keep America out of unnecessary wars. Since then, he has threatened war against Denmark for Greenland and actually invaded both Venezuela and Iran.

“I thought you wanted him to end wars all over the world,” Walsh wrote on his Substack. “You said you wanted him to end American entanglement in conflicts and wars around the world. America shouldn’t be involved in these wars, you said. That’s why you’re voting for Trump, you said.” Then, despite Trump’s actions against Denmark, Venezuela and Iran, they still support him.

He added, “And you don’t like when people call you a cult, Trump voters? 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?”

Earlier this month, he also argued they have endangered democracy by forgiving Trump for his attempt to overthrow the government after losing the 2020 presidential election.

“Of everything that Trump's done, this is the one thing that I thought, when he did it, the American people would forever banish him to like Siberia,” former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) said during a podcast he posted on Monday. “It's the one thing that Trump did that I can't move past, because it's the one thing that the American people did that I can just never, ever, ever forgive.”

He added that it was “the very first time in American history, a sitting American president lost an election and refused to accept the result. I still believe to this day the American people, all of us, no matter anyone's politics, should have turned their backs on him — all of us — and told him to just get the hell out of our lives. We're done with you. That's the one thing. Because it's the thread by which this representative democracy hangs together, keeps it together.”

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