There is no excuse for Trump’s moral corruption — but people try
Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, on the white evangelical response to Donald Trump’s alleged tryst with a porn star: “We kind of gave him — ‘All right, you get a mulligan. You get a do-over here.’ ”
House Speaker Paul Ryan on allegations that Trump sought to interfere with an FBI investigation: “He’s new at government, and so therefore I think that he is learning as he goes.”
Chief of Staff John Kelly on Trump’s promise to build a border wall: “[Politicians] say things during the course of campaigns that may or may not be fully informed.”
Pennsylvania voter Joey Del Signore on Trump’s boast of sexually assaulting women: “He’s a human male. … So he’s not perfect.”
Former aide Sebastian Gorka on why people should not take Trump’s alarming tweets seriously: “It’s not policy. It’s social media. You know the difference, right?”
North Carolina voter Bill Wallace on Trump’s frequent untruths: “All people lie.”
Ohio Rep. Jim Renacci, on reports that Trump called Haiti, El Salvador and Africa “s—thole countries”: “Let’s not judge the president on what he says.”
Pennsylvania voter Pam Schilling on Trump’s failure to deliver on his promises: “I’m not going to blame him. Absolutely not.”
Our topic for the day: “Excuses for Donald Trump.”
Indeed, 16 months into this crisis presidency, one of the most troubling things about it is not the revolving door White House, the indictments, the lies, the sex scandals, the racism, the decline in American prestige, nor the daily drumbeat of war, but rather, the refusal of his followers to hold the Dear Leader accountable for any of it.
Consider the excuses above, each more threadbare than the last. It’s a litany of rationalizations and justifications of a sort depressingly familiar to anyone within earshot of a Trump believer.
“He’s not perfect, but …” “He says crazy things, but …”
“What about when Hillary …?”
“What about how Obama …?”
Granted, Trump, a rich man’s son with a long history of walking away from responsibilities and debts, has probably never known what it is to be held accountable. But the failure of 89 percent of Republicans — Trump’s most recent Gallup approval rating — to demand responsibility is a national scandal.
Christian leaders are breaking faith, political leaders are sacrificing moral authority, average people are doing violence to decency and logic, all to excuse the inexcusable and explain away the objectively awful. That’s not political loyalty. Would so many people have so readily dismembered conscience on behalf of Reagan, Clinton, Bush or Obama?
No. So, the explanation for this lies beyond reason. This is less a presidency than a cult.
The moral of that story is this: unquestioning obeisance to unaccountable power is a recipe for disaster, a lesson we may be poised to relearn. No one can say what form some new disaster might take, but that one is coming seems more likely every day. If and when it does come, nine out of 10 Republicans will be its authors.
Something else for which there will be no excuse.