Politics, they say, makes strange bedfellows, and that Shakespearean aphorism may ring true when, for example, we observe the peculiar klatch of mismatched supporters who have crawled under the duvet with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: “trad mom” home-schoolers outraged that the Food and Drug Administration tries to prevent them from guzzling raw milk have cuddled up with lefty hippies who believe vaccines contain government-tracking microchips or may just possibly magnetize their children.
But “strange bedfellows” and political expedience are no decent explanation for the cast of unsavory characters our president and his administration go out of their way to call “friend.” It’s one-armed bro hugs all around for Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin — leaders who shouldn’t be given the dignity of a hearty handshake, much less an invitation to dine on steak Diane and Diet Mountain Dew.
What message is telegraphed when you invite a killer to a social event? A jury acquitted Daniel Penny of criminally negligent homicide after he choked a subway busker to death on a northbound F train, but why did JD Vance go out of his way to take Mr. Penny to an Army-Navy football game in December?
Do you remember 2008, when Barack Obama was pilloried for associating with Bill Ayers, who had been a member of the Weather Underground terror organization back in the 1960s? How do you feel about the support the new head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin, has received from the Oath Keepers, radical armed extremists who made their name at the Bundy Ranch standoff in 2014, training their rifle sights on federal law enforcement?
What about Vice President JD Vance’s closeness with Curtis Yarvin, the wild-eyed extremist blogger who believes democracy is done and that we should embrace an American “monarchy run by a C.E.O.” instead? Mr. Yarvin urges Americans to overcome our fear of dictatorship because we’d be better off under one.
A leader can be understood by examining the company he keeps, and the company being kept around the long mahogany table in the State Dining Room these days is far beyond the pale.
Those honorable Republicans remaining in Washington, D.C., should find the spine and join their Democratic colleagues in saying so out loud.