“Anyone who knows me knows that these words do not reflect who I am,” Donald Trump declared in his “apology” video last night. More likely, the exact opposite is the truth. I don’t know the man personally, but like the rest of you, I’ve been obliged to study him for the past year and more, and it’s safe to say that most people have the impression that this is exactly who he is, and who he has always been. I’m not sure why the Earth is opening up under him now and not a hundred other times in the past 16 months, but it’s a long, long, overdue reckoning.
It is tragic for the country that this likely means a Clinton victory. But as between a Clinton and Trump presidency, the former is probably less devastating to the things we treasure than the latter. Alexander Hamilton called Aaron Burr an “unprincipled voluptuary” in 1800 and wrote that he’d prefer to see his ideological foe Thomas Jefferson prevail. “Mr. Burr loves nothing but himself,” Hamilton wrote, “thinks of nothing but his own aggrandizement–and will be content with nothing short of permanent power in his own hands. No compact, that he should make with any passion in his breast except Ambition, could be relied upon . . .” If Trump were president, Republicans and conservatives would be forever tainted by every irresponsible, cruel, or stupid thing he said or did. Besides, if we’re going to have liberalism for another four years, let it wear the proper Democrat label.
It’s pathetic to see people calling upon this contemptible fraud, bully, and egotist to withdraw for the sake of his party and his country. If he gave a whit for either, he would have been gone long ago.