In a failed attempt to understand life outside the morally superior left coast, New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg argues that many Trump supporters are simply “bad people,” of two kinds: “the immoral and the amoral.”

Goldberg wasn’t writing about the MAGA-hat wearing middle-Americans who turn out in droves for Trump’s rallies, nor the conservative-leaning average Joe who would have voted for a kick in the head before Hillary Clinton. Instead, she was talking about the revolving cast of aides, officials, and lawmakers who’ve worked for the Trump administration or lent political support to his policies.

They’re the Steve Bannons (a “quasi-fascist with delusions of grandeur”), and the Anthony Scaramuccis ( a “political cipher who likes to be on TV”), the Ivanka Trumps and the Lindsey Grahams. Out of them all, Goldberg finds the apolitical figures, the ones only in it for the paycheck, the worst.

“Trump is unique as a magnet for grifters, climbers and self-promoters,” she wrote. “In part because decent people won’t associate with him.”

Of course, all of this is predicated on the belief that ‘Orange Man Bad,’ a belief that many of the New York Times’ readers likely share with Goldberg. The columnist ponders out loud how these people could work for Trump without feeling “shame or remorse” at his “belligerent nationalism and racist conspiracy theories.” What exactly these conspiracy theories are, however, Goldberg does not explain. Instead, we’re expected to know instinctively that Trump is, for whatever reason, bad.

The idea that anyone who works for Trump is “bad” by association is simplistic and no doubt appealing to many in the media and the #Resistance. However, reality is more complicated. Trump aides and officials have their own careers to advance, their own dreams and ambitions, and their own car payments to make. The institutions of Washington, DC will endure long after Trump leaves office, and many of these bureaucrats will still need work.

Take Mary Kissel, named this month as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s new foreign policy adviser. Kissel is a former Wall Street Journal reporter who has been sharply critical of and even openly hostile to Trump’s policies before. Is Kissel’s move to the State Department a surrender of her anti-Trump media credentials, or simply a career upgrade?

What about the officials who served in past administrations? Surely the New York Times fretted over the 29 Google employees who took up jobs in the Obama White House? After all, Obama presided over the largest expansion of mass surveillance in history, and defended the National Security Agency even after it emerged that it gathered vast amounts of call, email and internet data from millions of Americans.

Some moves through the revolving door that existed between Google and the Obama White House were reported, but the morals of the employees themselves were never questioned. Because, while these moves raised questions about the cosy relationship between Washington, DC and the tech industry, they were at an individual level, career moves. Besides, they were working for Obama, who came with a tacit seal of approval from much of the mainstream media.

Things are different in 2018, however. Trump (who Goldberg actually called “the orange emperor” in her previous column) is bad, and anyone who works for him is bad and should feel bad. Life sure is black and white on the pages of the Gray Lady.

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