GOP must stop defending Trump’s sins
Trump fans, please: Just stop. We already have one Bill Clinton. We don’t need another.
Listening to so many of my fellow conservatives dancing on the head of a pin over definitions of campaign finance vs. hush money, criminal vs. civil, etc., one phrase keeps coming back to me:
“It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”
No. No, it doesn’t. Bill Clinton hooked up with an intern, he lied about it under oath — period. There’s no definition of “is” that can put that cigar back into the humidor.
Today, Donald Trump is a serial womanizer who, while his wife was at home with their new baby, was (ahem) “working on his short game” with every golf club hottie he could land. He paid out nearly $300,000 to keep two of the women quiet during the campaign, and used his personal attorney to arrange the payoffs.
One of the women wouldn’t stay paid off (Stormy Daniels) and went public, and Trump lied and lied and lied about what he did, and he’s still lying today. Yesterday — yesterday(!) — during the White House presser, Sarah Huckabee Sanders called a reporter’s claim that Trump lied about the payment in the past “a ridiculous accusation.”
Uh, no. He lied. On videotape. We all saw it.
Trump supporters, you know the truth. You know Donald Trump is a sleazeball who makes stuff up all the time and can’t be trusted with the church bingo fund.
And yes, Trump is also right about economic growth, he supports Israel, he hates the Iran deal and he appoints some damn fine judges.
And double-yes, the Clintons are awful and there’s no evidence of collusion and the FBI has an internal antiTrump bias and the media are out to get him, yes, yes, yes. It’s all true. That’s the point.
I’m not asking Republicans to go “Full CNN” and shout Trump’s failings from the rooftops. But I’m sick of listening to you scream off your balcony that — as Sarah Huckabee Sanders said 437 times in 14 seconds yesterday — “Donald Trump has done nothing wrong.”
Just. Stop.
Stop going on TV (Mark Levin) and telling me that paying off a porn star in the waning days of the campaign to keep her out of the news cycle is “doing nothing wrong.”
Stop going on the radio (Rush Limbaugh) explaining to me how a president who denies he knew about porn-star payoffs after we’ve all heard the audiotape of him discussing them with his attorney (“Pay with cash?”) is “doing nothing wrong.”
Stop telling me, all you people who wanted Bill Clinton impeached for lying about his pants problems, that the guy whose attorney is going to prison for five years for doing what Trump told him to “did nothing wrong.”
When the White House spin is, as John Roberts of Fox News reported, “Remember, the president cannot be indicted,” that’s not the argument of someone who “did nothing wrong.”
People: Trump. Did. Something. Wrong. A lot of things, actually. And if you keep defending Trump’s awful behavior as perfectly acceptable, you’re going to find yourself in a hole that’s very difficult to get out of.
Don’t believe me? Ask a Democrat.
In 1999, Democrats were giddy with joy that they’d helped Bill Clinton get away with it. He was “President O.J.” — everyone knew he was guilty but he walked, anyway.
Twenty years later, however, their party is still paying the price. There’s a reason Hillary Clinton couldn’t win in 2008 or 2016. There’s a reason why the #MeToo movement has cut so deeply for Democrats. Their decision to defend Bill Clinton’s indefensible actions cost them credibility in the public square that they have yet to restore.
Republicans, don’t make the same mistake. One day, the Trump presidency will end. There will be another great battle between left and right for the future of our nation. And with your most important weapons — integrity, honesty, principle — broken across the tracks of the Trump Train, you’ll find yourself forced to fight unarmed.