Over five centuries ago, Niccolo Machiavelli’s penetrating eye and analytical mind observed that to acquire power an individual must serve the powerful.
His observation explains the flip-flops of Mike Lee and JD Vance: At one point both felt that Trump’s behavior was so reprehensible that they could never support him, but after Trump got power, they became his fawning sycophants.
Until recently, Gov. Cox appeared more principled than Lee and Vance; in previous elections, he refused to vote for Trump. But his Trump endorsement raises this question: Because Trump now carries much more baggage than ever before — he is an adjudicated rapist, a big-time fraudster, and has 34 felony convictions — what changed to dramatically lower Cox’s standards?
Rick Edwin Jones, West Haven
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