Lynne Patton’s Unreality Show
“YOU HAVE NOT been the kindest journalist to me,” Lynne Patton told me over the phone. I could not argue with that: In reporting on her rise from Trump family aide to a key official at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, I’ve covered her one-month stay in public housing and her Instagram post scoffing at Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). Yet as I watched Patton with fascination, what I really wanted to know was this: Is the most prominent black woman in the Trump administration for real? Or is she just playing the role of the loyal black friend in a reality TV presidency?
Black conservatives like Patton, long confusing to liberals, are positively confounding in the age of Trump. Why do they
