President’s behavior should irk more of us
Vote conscience in midterms
The news that just before the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump’s lawyer used a Delaware company to secretly pay $130,000 to a porn star to keep quiet about their sexual affair led conservative writer Bill Kristol to mock those who have stayed stoutly silent about the president — no matter how disgraceful his conduct, no matter how strong the evidence of it.
“Who among us,” tweeted the former chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle, “hasn’t created a Delaware LLC to pay an adult film star hush money?”
Kristol is one of an admirable handful of conservatives who have forcefully, publicly expressed their revulsion at the harm the Trump presidency causes not merely America’s reputation, but its character. While there are others — Republican Sens. Bob Corker and Jeff Flake and columnist Jennifer Rubin among them — they are in a small minority. A Los Angeles Times poll taken last week showed that 75 percent of Republicans approve of Trump, while another 9 percent “neither approve nor disapprove.” Overall, fully 40 percent of Americans regard the president favorably, untroubled by a first year filled with behavior that ought to trouble Americans a very great deal, regardless of our political affiliations.
This includes a habit of lying, which — let us face it — is pathological, and which ought to concern every parent who has ever told a child that it is important to tell the truth and wrong not to. It includes Trump’s proud acknowledgment of predatory assaults on women and bragging about being able to get away with them because of his fame.
It includes the flagrant attempts to shut down an investigation aimed at determining whether the president and his team have broken the law and cooperated with a hostile, foreign power to interfere with our elections.
And it includes the cruel, unAmerican belittling of impoverished countries comprised of impoverished people — by a billionaire staked to a fortune by a wealthy father, who has never known a moment’s want, and who lives, quite literally, in a gold-plated tower.
This fall’s midterm elections will be not simply a referendum on the president’s character, but a test of our own. The outcome may well hinge on whether Republicans choose the path paved by conservatives of conscience like Bill Kristol, or instead continue on a much darker path.