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Bret Stephens, a columnist for the New York Times, claimed in a publication that he was wrong to call former President Donald Trump’s supporters “appalling.” The article is part of a series of posts by various columnists at the outlet that began with the phrase “I was wrong.”
Stephens’ article refers to a piece he wrote in 2015 in which he attacked those Americans who chose to support then-businessman Donald Trump in his run for the presidency.
“The worst line I ever wrote as a pundit. If by now you don’t find Donald Trump appalling, you’re appalling,” Stephens said.
Stephens explained that Trump supporters saw something he didn’t by being part of what he described as “the protected.” He commented that the Republican voters saw a deterioration in their schools and neighborhoods and so gambled for change. “It was an experience compounded by the insult of being treated as losers and racists.”
Campaigning against Donald Trump
Bret Stephens stressed that he does not support Trump but recognizes that many citizens decided to vote for the former president because they felt betrayed by other leaders and saw a different way of doing politics in the Republican Party.
“Trump voters had a powerful case to make that they had been thrice betrayed by the nation’s elites, First, after 9/11, when they had borne much of the brunt of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, only to see Washington fumble and then abandon the efforts,” he wrote.
He also claimed there was a campaign against Donald Trump. “The Steele dossier and all the bogus allegations, credulously parroted in the mainstream media, that flowed from it was an elaborate hoax and that there’s just no other word for it.”
Williams Perdomo es periodista y escritor, especializado en las fuentes Política y Cultura.