For a while now we have mocked the metastasizing cult of personality on the American right by suggesting there's a Dear Leader thing going on. Any day now, a Fox News special report will announce the president just shot 38-under with 11 holes-in-one. Every president can count on the support of his people, and Democrats in the Obama era were all too happy to overlook, say, his expansion of extrajudicial executions via the drone program, or his decision to bail out the bankers over ordinary homeowners in the depths of the Great Recession. But the sheer recklessness and mendacity of Donald Trump, American president, has brought this dynamic to a new level. The president's word is not exactly bond, and he ends up twisting his supporters into knots as they labor to offer their support for whatever it is he's up to today, even if it directly contradicts what he said yesterday. Staying aligned with an inveterate liar who may be a few sandwiches short of a picnic requires unrelenting devotion.

Still, this was until now a dynamic less spoken than observed. Leave it to Lou Dobbs, the fashy Benjamin Button, to lay it all out there. The Fox Business host got to complaining about impeachment Monday night, and he took one of the newer pro-Trump tacks on the issue: he didn't bother to address the president's actual behavior, but instead recited the incantations about a "farce" and how impeachment is "partisan" before simply declaring that we have a duty to love El Jefe.

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Lou Dobbs attacks America for not understanding we have an obligation to serve Donald Trump



"It is a shame that this country which is benefitting so much from this president's leadership does not understand their obligations to this leader who is making it possible" pic.twitter.com/z7wFNroxJJ — Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) January 7, 2020

The nation has "obligations to The Leader." Jesus Christ, man. Really saying the quiet part out loud.

In a constitutional republic, the people have no obligation to any politician, not even the president. He works for us. We give him the job and pay his salary. It is our duty as a self-governing people to monitor what he does and make our own decisions as to whether that policy is in our personal interests and the collective national interest. We have no obligation to overlook the president's crimes because the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up. That's core to Dobbs' appeal here, tailored for business leaders who've made money while the president attacks the separation of powers undergirding our system of government and extorts foreign governments into attacking our elections and monetizes his office for personal gain. The only way we would have such a mandatory devotion to The Leader is if we now believe the president is the state, and that patriotism is allegiance to the current political leadership rather than the Constitution of the republic. This is possibly the most un-American sentiment possible, but it's certainly starting to take hold.

Just look at Nikki Haley, once held up as a Sane Republican, and now joining the other Sane Republicans—like Little Marco—in the Trumpian asylum.

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“The only ones mourning the loss of Soleimani are our Democrat leadership and Democrat Presidential candidates.” pic.twitter.com/IZJJqpxkBE — Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) January 7, 2020

The 2003 playbook is in full effect. Anyone who questions the new push for war is:

A terrorist sympathizer;

Hates America;

Thinks Soleimani was a good guy;

Won't support The Troops.

It wasn't enough for Haley to say Democrats are playing politics, she had to suggest Democrats are somehow in league with an Iranian general who conducted shadow wars against American soldiers. She is saying that to question the president's decision is to make common cause with the enemies of the United States, because for the Republican base, the president now is America. Never mind that getting in a war with Iran might not be in the American national interest, or in the interests of the American troops who will have to fight it without end.



No one in a position of leadership is mourning the loss of Soleimani. People are demanding to see evidence for why the assassination was justified and necessary and will serve the long-term national interest of the United States of America. The likeliest explanation for this authoritarian rhetorical turn is that there is no evidence there was an "imminent attack," that there is no justification that comports with international law, and that Donald Trump does not consider the long-term anything when doing anything—including the interests of anyone but himself. The most patriotic thing to do in this situation is to voice your dissent against an obvious world-historical blunder that threatens to send more American kids to fight and die in a war that cannot be won. If you're not convinced, all the same people who backed the Iraq War are banging the drums in support of this one.

(Also, Haley's suggestion that "Gulf states" would be mad we attacked Iran without justification is completely absurd. They are Iran's regional adversaries. Jesus Christ.)

This is what's required to make it in Republican politics at the moment: zero ethics or shame in service of bottomless ambition. Elsewhere on Fox News yesterday, we heard a straightforward argument that the U.S. should commit war crimes. Just say anything, as long as you're backing whatever the Mad King tweeted 24 minutes ago. Meanwhile, four years ago, Donald Trump was a well-known asshole hosting a game show in a fake boardroom on television. Now, whatever he says about major geopolitical events becomes the gospel for ghoulish millionaires and the millions of citizens who've been sucked into watching them every day. We're all trapped in his reverse-Truman Show. Imagine, back in 2014, offering someone your strategy to combat Iran and, when they asked where you got it from, you told them it was Donald Trump's idea.

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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