Trump’s Rampage
By now, it’s fairly clear that Donald Trump’s campaign is in free-fall. It’s also fairly clear that Trump’s decided to tear apart both the Republican Party — and the United States.
Trump has thrown civility to the wind in these last, desperate days of his presidential run. Anything goes. Anything is said. Hillary needs to go to jail. Bill Clinton sexually assaulted all those women. Not paying taxes is a smart thing — if he, Trump, was the one who failed to pay.
Trump has boasted that he can do almost anything to a woman because — well, because he’s rich and he’s Trump. He’s boasted about kissing and touching them. But that was just “locker room talk,” he says. “Locker room” talk he spoke when he was 59 years old — and not in a locker room.
And though Trump has said that “anything goes” when it comes to women — oh, no, he didn’t do anything to those women who are now coming forward with claims that he improperly touched them years ago. No, they’re lying — and those media outlets reporting such things — the New York Times, the Washington Post, ABC, NBC, CBS — they’re all in the tank for Hillary, and they’re all part of a world-wide conspiracy designed to keep him, Donald Trump, out of the White House.
As for those Republican Party officials who have decided that enough is enough when it comes to Trump — well, he just doesn’t need them or the party. He’ll teach them not to mess with him. The shackles are off, Trump says, and now he can run his campaign the way he really wants to run it.
And the way he really wants to run it is to drag anyone and everyone who doesn’t support him into the mud. Destroy them. Demonize them. Make this campaign so bad, so vile, so low, that when it’s over, nothing’s left standing. And, of course, when Hillary wins — because we’ve gone beyond “if” Hillary will win — claim the system was rigged. It was a conspiracy. A vast effort to keep him from power.
But what of those who still support Trump in the wake of all his stupid and often racist statements and lies? Well, their support can easily be summed up — they hate Hillary Clinton. And nothing Trump says — not one thing — matters to them. If he boasts of sexual conquests, those evangelicals who support him just turn the other cheek because, after all, Trump is not Hillary.
However, I do question whether those Trump supporters who have stayed with him in spite of his sexual boasts — would give him a pass if he groped one of their daughters. Just asking.
Of course, those folks who give Trump a pass on his sexual misdeeds believe everything ever said about Bill Clinton’s indiscretions. They not only believe them — they revel in believing them. Why? Because Bill Clinton is not Trump. Donald Trump can get away with saying or doing anything, and his supporters will never care because, truly, Trump has shown himself to be the epitome of what they’ve always wanted in a presidential candidate — someone who says he’ll “take care” of all those immigrants and magically “bring back” all those jobs and “stand up” for them, the forgotten man.
What a joke. As if billionaire Donald Trump cared one bit about “the little man,” the “forgotten” man. Yet millions of poorly educated whites have latched on to him in the hope — a vain hope — that he’ll take revenge on all those people and things and events that have changed our culture and changed society over the past years. You know — things like gay marriage. Women having the right to make decisions about their own bodies. Immigrants taking those jobs that — Trump’s supporters say — whites should have.
Trump’s on his way to a big loss in November, and when it happens, his backers will slink away, cocoon themselves with their favorite fanatical talk-radio host and just hate the next four years. But they won’t stay away. Once hate permeates a campaign or a society, it’s difficult to return to civility.