The most scandalous thing about Donald John Trump
It seems incredible that this is the man whom American evangelicals have so completely identified with. Take it to the bank: if Pete Buttigieg is his opponent next year, they will point to Buttigieg's open homosexuality and ask whether his sexual behavior provides a good example for America's children. They asked the same thing about Bill Clinton, a president admittedly less than saintly in his ethics. But they are totally oblivious to the clear and irrefutable fact that next to what is a matter of public record about Donald Trump, both men are paragons of virtue.
If Mr. Trump has any actual convictions at all (other than his own greatness), they are not apparent. He's spent his life in the business community demonstrating that he does not believe that rules apply to him. To tell the story of his life is to tell the story of scandal after scandal after scandal.
Yet perhaps the greatest scandal of all is that all of this was known long before he announced his candidacy for president. The information was readily available to those who supported him. It remains readily available. But they remain completely in denial about the clear and undeniable fact that the President of the United States is a career con artist.
He hasn't exactly improved his behavior since assuming the presidency, either. Since assuming office, he has continued to demonstrate what was plain and clear all along: that in no possible sense is the man fit to be President of the United States.
Time and time again he has told falsehoods or made up his own "facts" as he went along, and been caught. But being caught, he often doubles down on his falsehoods and continues to repeat them.
But a large minority of the American people continue to ignore and even to deny what is right in front of them. But there it is.
Despite the implausible spin given by his supporters to Mr. Trump's infamous comments to Billy Bush, in them, he frankly confessed to his habitual sexual abuse of women. He habitually makes up his "facts" on the spot and often doubles down on his statements even after they are shown to be false. He simply ignores Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the Constitution, which forbids Federal employees to accept gifts or financial favors from foreign governments, operating a hotel in close enough proximity to the White House that foreign dignitaries often stay there; somehow, a strange number of government meetings and functions take place at Trump-owned properties. His extensive Russian holdings and business contacts are disturbing in light of his attitude toward Russia and President Putin, whom he stubbornly defends from conclusively proven charges that he interfered with the 2016 U.S. election on his behalf. He even repeats the FSB-created myth that Ukraine rather than Russia was responsible for the hacking of Democratic National Committee email servers.
And it should come as no surprise to anyone that Mr. Trump, in his relations with other people, has not always been a very nice man. It isn't clear who it is who actually first said that a diplomat is someone who can tell someone to go to hell in such a way that he looks forward to the trip. But judging from his Twitter account and his public statements in general, the man in charge of setting our nation's foreign policy thinks that diplomacy is simply a matter of telling people to go to hell.
Or at least telling our allies and democratic leaders that. Dictators and authoritarians like Ergodan and Duterte and America's enemies like Putin and Kim, he fawns upon and readily allows to make fools of him- and thus of America- before the entire world.
His admirers dismiss his crudity and abuse of others as mere imperfections. Yet the question can't help but arise as to whether they don't reveal the essence of the man. And somehow, the man in question fails to raise alarm bells in something like a third of us. And that does not speak well of us as a people.
A prime example of Donald Trump's unfitness for the office he holds can be found in a remark he made back during the campaign when he seemed to brag that the American military would follow even illegal orders he issued. He subsequently backed off from the statement. Yet the fact that he could have made it at all reinforces a disturbing pattern in his life: this is a man who doesn't seem to believe in the rule of law, in following rules. And that's a disturbing thing in a man who serves as the nation's chief magistrate.
Mr. Trump's apparent disdain for military law is in the news again. Former Navy Secretary Richard Spencer was indeed fired for not informing Defense Secretary Mark Esper before contacting the White House in an attempt to salvage some respect for the chain of command and standards of military comportment in the case of a man convicted of posing for pictures with the body of a dead enemy but pardoned by the president. It wasn't about Sec. Spencer's unease, shared by a great many in the military, about the president's undermining of good order and the rule of law in the armed forces. But it seems that our first openly pro-war criminal president now apparently wants not one, not two, but three convicted war criminals to be celebrated as heroes at the convention that renominates him next year.
Reason tells us that there is a limit to the degree to which a person can remain in denial about the patently obvious. Yet a third of us seem to be in denial about the fact that the President of the United States does not believe in accountability or rules, especially when they apply to him. But beyond that, it's clear beyond rational dispute that the man whom the Constitution charges with taking care that the laws are faithfully executed holds the rule of law in contempt. That is the most scandalous thing about this most scandalous of presidents. Yet even more scandalous is the percentage of the American people who are willing to tolerate or remain in denial about it.
Mr. Trump's supporters say that his opponents were planning to impeach him since the day he was elected. They are right. Given Mr. Trump's disdain for the law, for rules, and for accountability, it was only a matter of time before he not only did something that would get him impeached but would be unable to muddy the waters sufficiently to avoid being held accountable for it whether he liked it or not.
The House will impeach him, the Senate will acquit him, and he will yet again, implausibly, claim vindication. But the verdict of history will not be so kind either to him or to those who excuse his antics. And I trust that the American people will hold him accountable next November by a big enough margin this time that he can't be kept in power by a geographical fluke of the kind that gave it to him in the first place.
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