RICHARD FERNANDEZ: Liberalism’s Ethical Morass Makes the Deplorables Seem Not So Bad After All.

Yet perhaps the biggest hurdle virtue-based liberalism faced was the problem of elite morality or the lack thereof. The Jeffrey Epstein teenage trafficking case, coming on the heels of numerous celebrity and media sex scandals, reminded everyone that the aristocracy was as fallible as anyone else.  That the Justice Department sat on evidence for more than 10 years made it even worse because the rot was bipartisan — and widespread. The scandal touches “numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well-known prime minister and other world leaders” who were exploiting the weak, the troubled, the runaways.

In this ethical morass, the Deplorables don’t seem so bad at all. One reason why virtue-signaling attacks against Donald Trump have proved ineffective is that many are convinced the liberal elite appear no better and good deal less competent than the knuckle-draggers they denounce. Consequently, not a few are willing to go with a president who has boosted the economy, defeated ISIS, rebuilt the military and even — as an article in Foreign Policy claims — done more for the millions of Uighurs in camps than any Islamic leader, even if he has done this not out of virtue but self-interest, simply because he wants to be re-elected or wants the America which he leads to be number one. Trump cultivates this narrative, making only a shambolic nod to respectability while ceaselessly stressing his ability to win.

Read the whole thing.