-snip-
Let me be clear: Trump’s little game doesn’t reflect American ideology as much as it exposes the flaws within it.
It further exacerbates a corrosive culture on the right that now celebrates the Cult of Idiocy — from Glenn Beck to Michele Bachmann — where riling liberals is more valuable than reason and logic, and where intellectualism and even basic learnedness are viewed with suspicion and contempt.
It further advances the campaign of the rich and powerful in America to exploit the fears of those who feel most fragile in an effort to increase or insulate their fortunes.
It further enshrines the destructive pop culture dogma that fame and fortune grant moral wiggle room to flout the rules and obscure the truth.
-more-
You really need to read the entire piece. I hated being restricted to just the four paragraphs I posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/23/opinion/23blow.html?_r=1