GOPers have 'burning psychological need' to ignore 'fascistic' Trump: ex-Bush speechwriter

Peter Wehner, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, finds himself particularly appalled at the way that his one-time party is reacting to the increasingly violent and threatening rhetoric being lobbed by former President Donald Trump.

In an essay for The Atlantic, Wehner writes that he is no longer surprised when Trump deploys "fascistic" rhetoric, such as when he refers to his domestic political opponents as "vermin."

He does, however, continue to be shocked at the way many people who understand the danger of such rhetoric try to rationalize it because they are too afraid of confronting what's become of their party.

"For most Republicans to acknowledge — to others and even to themselves — what Trump truly is and still stay loyal to him would create enormous cognitive dissonance," he writes. "Their mind won’t allow them to go there; instead, they find ways to ease the inner conflict."

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Wehner then outlines the assorted coping mechanisms he has seen Republicans adopt to avoid having to confront the reality about the man leading their party.

"And so they embrace conspiracy theories to support what they desperately want to believe -- for example, that the election was stolen, or that the investigation into Russian ties to the 2016 Trump campaign was a 'hoax,' or that Joe Biden has committed impeachable offenses," he argues.

"They indulge in whataboutism and catastrophism—the belief that society is on the edge of collapse—to justify their support for Trump. They have a burning psychological need to rationalize why, in this moment in history, the ends justify the means."