When I was editor of National Review Online, I had a rule: Never post unflattering pictures of Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton. I’m not a fan of their politics, but cheap shots aren’t winning moves. Similarly, Donald Trump and J. D. Vance need to discipline themselves and establish some rules of engagement regarding Kamala Harris.
If Trump does, in fact, debate Harris, he would be wise to keep in mind that making fun of her past verbal gaffes is a cheap shot, and he should remember a senatorial debate in New York in 2000, when Republican candidate Rick Lazio walked over to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s podium. It didn’t go well for Lazio. He looked like a bully. And for all our faults, most of us recoil at bullies — especially, I’d like to think, at men who bully women. Trump needs to be self-aware. The “Me Too” moment is still in our contemporary cultural memory despite the short attention span that our phones have trained in us. We know Trump’s history. Even if everything on the cover of the New York Post about him over the years wasn’t true, we’d still know enough about him that is. A Billy Bush interview and an awful comment he made to Megyn Kelly during a primary debate come to mind, for starters. (If you don’t know, do yourself a favor and don’t Google it.)
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