Daily Freeman (Kingston, NY)

Trump’s bathwater vs. Hillary’s

- Michael Reagan Making Sense Michael Reagan is syndicated by Cagle Cartoons.

The Great Donald Trump Pivot is still very much in progress.

Who knows where his position on illegal immigratio­n is going.

If he does anymore specials with Sean Hannity, he’s liable to replace his signature border wall idea with a big open gate in El Paso manned by volunteers from Welcome Wagon.

What’s the next late-August surprise going to be?

That he’s fired Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon and replaced them with James Carville? That he’s offered the secretary of state job in advance to Khizr Khan?

Someone had better put a suicide watch on poor Ann Coulter. Her book “In Trump We Trust” came out Wednesday — two weeks too late.

Trump is pivoting, changing, evolving, selling out — whatever you want to call it. It’s long overdue.

We’ve been saying here all along he had to change the way his campaign was being run, but that even if he didn’t do it, all Republican­s needed to fully support him.

It may be too late for the New & Improved Trump and the GOP.

He has only two months to retrieve the millions of conservati­ve Republican faithful who have been disgusted or embarrasse­d by the original Trump.

Meanwhile, I think I’ve figured out one reason why so many conservati­ves in the GOP aren’t publicly supporting him.

It’s kind of like guilt by associatio­n, only with Trump it’s shame or discomfort by associatio­n.

Trump is being subjected to a double standard in the media and in the political arena that hurts him and helps Hillary Clinton.

Someone can endorse Lying Hillary and they are not seen as a liar.

Someone can say they’re going to vote for Crooked Hillary and they’re not seen as a criminal.

Someone can say they voted twice for President Bill Clinton and they’re not thought of as a sexual predator.

Hillary and Bill are career liars and crooks, in office and out, who’ve recently become quarter billion aires by glob ali zing the concept of good old-fashioned political graft.

But no one who says they support Hillary for president is splashed with 30 years of the Clintons’ dirty bathwater.

With Trump, it’s different. Anyone who endorses him, or merely says they’ll vote for him, is automatica­lly labeled a racist or a misogynist.

That’s why people like Speaker Paul Ryan and so many Republican congressme­n and senators running for re-election are so scared of Trump.

They endorse him halfhearte­dly or not at all because they don’t want to be thrown into the same bathtub with him.

The mainstream liberal media are a big part of the problem, as usual.

They make sure a vote for Trump is seen as a vote for racism, yet they would never dream of saying that a vote for Hillary is a vote for lying or influence peddling.

Republican­s at all levels have to understand that endorsing Trump or voting for him doesn’t make you a racist or a womanhater — neither of which describes the real-life Donald Trump, by the way.

Lots of people — including lots of blacks and Latinos — are going to vote for Trump but will never tell their neighbors. So will lots of conservati­ves who say they hate Trump.

Heck, my dad voted for Gerald Ford in 1976 and didn’t even tell Nancy. He didn’t want to sleep on the couch.

It’s up to Trump to add a few gallons of chlorine to his bathwater so conservati­ves who aren’t Ann Coulter don’t mind bathing in it, which, figurative­ly, is what he’s trying to do now with his Great Pivot.

It’s up to Ryan and the other party leaders to give Trump their full support as we head for November.

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