Since the election, the New York Times ethics advice columnist “The Ethicist” has been featuring a series of hopelessly dunderheaded questions from Trump-Deranged New York Democrats. “Should I cut off my Trump-supporting mother?” was one that Ethics Alarms discussed recently. I have to assume Kwame Appiah is getting a lot of these questions and thinks they really need more of an answer than “Grow up” or “Here’s the number of an affordable therapist.”

They don’t.

There were two more of this ilk today: “Is It Fair to Assume a Best Friend Is Bad and Selfish if She Supported Trump?” and a woman who felt her husband divulged a damning confidence by telling his adult children that her grandson had voted for Trump, as if he had informed them that the kid was a member of the Klan. Nobody who voted for either candidate should feel ashamed of their vote or feel they have to defend it.

Since The Ethicist’s employer is significantly responsible for these people’s current disability, being one of main purveyors of the “Trump is a fascist” fearmongering, I hold that Prof. Appiah has an obligation to give tough-love to these fools. Tell them that bias has made them stupid, that it is no more “selfish” or “ignorant” to vote for one candidate over another, and that the toxic delusion that those who reach a different conclusion than you regarding society, the culture, national policy and leadership are evil as opposed to merely having a different opinion.

The questioners exposing their mental illness to “The Ethicist” struck me especially hard today after I had read the ope-ed by Thomas Edsall in the Times, which you can read here without the paywall. This Axis propagandist depicts as vile and dangerous a whole series of Trump initiatives that I see as reasonable, overdue and necessary.

Trump’s administration will push universities to stop being Leftist indoctrination mills! Oh NO! He’ll take legal action against racial discrimination in the form of DEI departments! Horrors! News organization are going to start approaching their task with balance and objectivity! Help us, Obi Wan! Sanctuary cities standing in the way of the U.S. enforcing its immigration laws are going to suffer serious consequences! ARRGH!!! How could this happen???

He repeatedly assigns agreement with these initiatives as proof of democracy dying and a gradual acceptance of “authoritarianism,” with quotes like this:

“Our democracy has sadly already devolved into a “captured” state, certainly as concerns the judiciary, thanks to the diligent work of the Federalist Society and state-level G.O.P. machinery, as well as the Supreme Court, which handed Trump what autocrats such as Viktor Orban, premier of Hungary, have to work years to achieve: immunity for “official acts” even if those involve sending a SEAL team to execute a political assassination plan.”

Yes, the Times hack actually repeated that false characterization of the Supreme Court decision on Presidential immunity.

Odds-maker pundit Nate Silver has been writing recently about the failure of the “expert class,” of which Nate considers himself a member. Yeah, I’d call it a failure when instead of informing the public honestly and rationally with your expertise, you set out to make those who pay attention to you fearful, paranoid, hateful, biased, misinformed and vindictive.

That’s unethical, by the way.

Right, Kwami?