First off, I feel for the reporters who had to endure a score of these. This being !politics, I could easily go in a very anti-Trump direction from here.
But I'm not going to because it's not really relevant.
This is what happens near the end of the line in a subculture. Political, social, what have you ... this is what happens. Now, I want to hastily make clear that this does not mean the end of the movement is nigh, just this particular, beautiful bridge, tears running down its face, to nowhere.
While I'm also not going to claim we're out of the woods, there is clear exhaustion with the "flood the zone with shit" approach. We're nine years into this morass, and that there are still people on the fence, let alone people who believe Trump cares about them, is an issue for historians to work out. Might I suggest Riefenstahl for a brief primer?
"Racist asshole who's getting more unhinged is racist asshole who's getting more unhinged" is not a story. It'll get clicks, but it's about as groundbreaking as the oscillation of a caesium atom.
Shortly before she died, Riefenstahl voiced her final words on the subject of her connection to Hitler in a BBC interview: "I was one of millions who thought Hitler had all the answers. We saw only the good things; we didn't know bad things were to come."[70]