For those Muslim Republicans and Middle Eastern conservatives, the answer they appear to be getting from Trump's advisers appears to be the same answer Trump's team is giving everyone else who they're trying to woo: Don't pay attention to the things Trump says, proposes, promises, or demands. Ignore it all—what's important instead, they say, is that Trump's extreme rhetoric shows he's willing to take on these issues "seriously." And it appears to be working, in that Republicans appear to be quite willing to believe that Trump doesn't know what the hell he's talking about or have any ability to articulate it without coming off as a nut, but at least he's showing the right emotion for the job!
“His mannerism and language doesn’t always paint a pretty picture – but neither does the idea of a nuclear Iran, Yazidi sex slaves, more terrorist attacks, the Muslim Brotherhood, gross human rights violations, drone wars, etc.,” [conservative Muslim writer Shireen Qudosi] wrote.
And if that was the choice being presented—say, if there were no more candidates for the presidency that might have a more credible approach in mind to all these problems—it would indeed be compelling. Apparently the notion that Mr. Let's Violate Some Human Rights can solve these problems via sheer triumph of his will is still, however, more credible to "serious" conservative thinkers than the thought of letting a Democrat handle it for a bit longer.
Which is uncanny, because it seems only yesterday that we came off the watch of another inarticulate know-nothing of a Republican president and it brought us massive terrorism, gross human rights violations, and a nuclear North Korea. Ah well, perhaps the problem there was that he wasn’t shouty enough. It may have all worked out better if he was more shouty.
None of this movement toward Trump by people who, by all rights, should either detest him or be genuinely frightened of his rhetoric should be taken as a token of any particular savviness or expertise on the part of advisers like Walid Phares. Instead, it's a reflection of just how easy it is for members of the "conservative movement" to rationalize away ever-more-extremist behaviors, ever-more-ridiculous ideas and genuine no-holds-barred stupidity in order to maintain the belief that "their side" is unambiguously the only legitimate holder of power.
Say what you must about Hillary Clinton, but the notion that she's better equipped to handle foreign policy and military crises than real estate developer and professional "rich guy" Donald J. Freaking Trump is indisputable—and indisputable is, if anything, too weak a word to use here. People who have invested themselves in the notion of conservative rightness, however, would rather set themselves on fire than admit that.
There is no plausible case to be made that a Donald Trump foreign policy would be anything other than ignorant and impulsive. This is so widely acknowledged that even his own campaign team is telling potential backers that everything he says is nonsense, but it's nonsense that somehow shows you can trust him purely because of the general directions his nonsense tends to point toward. And this is good enough, even for the previous “Never Trump” wing of the party, because what is truly important is that they be able to back the usual (or in this case, far from usual) Republican horse without having to contemplate whether the ideas or the party they adhere to are making any sense at all.
He says he is conservative now—that should be good enough, right? He says he hates so very many things, but that just shows his heart is in the good, conservative, forever angry place.
Right?