This profile of Steven Cheung feels like one of those texts where you see so much more clearly after having read it. Cheung is Trump's chief online attack dog. He's the source of much of the vile and disgusting combative statements issuing from the White House.
Yet, as you read it, you learn that - in person - Cheung is a nice, soft spoken guy. People like him. People including, it seems, media figures whom he will be kind to in person but savage on social media. There is an element of Trumpism that is all this kayfabe. Cheung was out of MMA if it wasn't obvious enough for you. It's all a big joke, don't you know.
This split between the person and the persona is how you can get media types to buy into the fact that the Trump White House doesn't really mean all the things they say. They are just pushing to see what they get away with. We have Trump's normally laughable suggestion that he might seek a third term. At the moment, I do think he's just pulling our collective legs and watching people freak out online.
In time, however, I think he will come to believe it. Just like how he was originally joking about Canada becoming the 51st state, but now seems to really, really hate Canada.
There are cartoonishly evil people in the White House like Stephen Miller, but Cheung is allowed to be someone else, someone not an outright Nazi, because he's polite in person.
You want to know what the DC press corpse is helping to usher us down the road to fascism? It's because they think they're in on the joke, and it's not a laughing matter at all.
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