Readability
Mr. Grenville: There is a small matter of you misinforming her in regard to your intellectual aptitude it might better for Miss Romana (I) to be appraised as to the extent of your family’s property before she learned of the deception.Reginald Basset: Of course she might not mind being manacled to a chap who was mentally negligible once she’s seen the size of his country estate!Mr. Grenville: I have observed that this is often to be the case with young ladies sir.Doctor Who the Auntie Matter 2012
I woke up Saturday morning to the breathless headline that Ladd Ehlinger’s predictions concerning opposition research concerning Donald Trump had come true as per this headline: Trump recorded having extremely lewd conversation about women in 2005.
I suspect the specific phrase that has made folks like Paul Ryan cut and run is this as quoted by Allahpundit:
“And when you’re a star they let you do it,” Trump says. “You can do anything.”“Whatever you want,” says another voice, apparently Bush’s.“Grab them by the p—y,” Trump says. “You can do anything.”
Stacy McCain has declared this game over
This election is over. Write “–30–” at the bottom and file it.
and Allahpundit says this:
If Clinton can’t win the election after this, she was never going to win the election, period.
And in any standard election year with any standard pol as the standard bearer of a party this would be true.
However there are two basic reasons why this isn’t necessarily true
- this is not a normal election year and Trump is not a normal candidate.
- His Opponent is Hillary Clinton.
Now I concede this is bad, not only in terms of what was said but what it implies. I strongly disapprove of it as I suspect many others like me do.
And that’s why I’ve chosen this moment, Catholic Blogger that I am, to double down and re-endorse Donald Trump for President of the United States!
Why would I do this? Quite simple, I’m not going to let myself be played. Let me explain.
To those who have endorsed Donald Trump, the idea that he is both boastful and vulgar has been a given, it has been factored into the equation concerning him. Furthermore his public persona has been out there for decades and he has never pretended to be anything other than what he is. I further suspect the voting public has already factored this into their image of Trump and it is unlikely that this revelation is going to move those who haven’t made up their minds one way or the other despite the shocked faces at CNN.
Furthermore the base reasons why many of us decided to endorse Trump have not changed:
…I know that there will be times that Donald Trump will disappointment me just as I expected Mitt Romney to disappoint men on social issues and John McCain to disappoint me on immigration and George W Bush who disappointed me on spending and the bank bailouts.
But while Trump will occasionally disappoint me (when he does I’ll call him on it) I am convinced he will neither persecute me nor strip me of my rights for holding my Conservative Catholic beliefs and acting on them.I am very sorry to say I can not make that same statement about Hillary Clinton, and I’m even sorrier to see the day when I would say this about a presidential candidate.
Nothing on that tape changes these truths. Clinton is going to persecute me, Trump is not.
Furthermore in terms of electability there is one thing that still favors Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton.
Hillary Clinton is the worst candidate for any office that I have seen since Martha Coakley. There is nothing at all likable about her. She is disliked and distrusted by the public by huge numbers, including many of those who will eventually vote for her.
Moreover the factor that I mentioned in my Trump endorsement still remains the same
I think that the sight of women and gay men being beaten by leftists because they support the presumptive GOP nominee, having it happen in full sight of police ordered to do nothing AND SEEING THOSE OFFICERS CHOOSING TO LET THEM BE BEATEN means that they can not count on the authorities to obey their oaths of office if they think doing so might cost them their jobs.Even worse than this is the obvious question it raises: If leftists are willing to resort to violence and boast about it before an election when it might hurt their ability to persuade the people to vote for them, how much more willing will they be to violently suppress their political foes when such behavior is rewarded with electoral victory by the people?What will that tell a populace that has already been arming itself nonstop for the last 4-6 years?
And that not even counting the basic corruption, the wholesale theft, the selling of the office of the president of the united states and the enabling of both islamic terror and our enemies in Russia, Iran, North Korea and China that will take place and the subsequent nuclear arms race that will follow.
There is also the whole business of Trump’s words vs the Clinton’s actions, my post from August really applies well here: (new emphasis here)
Our friends in the press and in culture say we should judge Donald Trump unacceptable by his words. They don’t like what he’s said about the border, about Rosie O’Donnell, about Kahn, about Islamic Terror etc etc etc. By these words in their eyes Donald Trump is unacceptable as president of the united statesThese same people however do not want us to Judge Hillary Clinton / Barack Obama by their deeds. From paying ransoms that finance terror to Iran for hostages (It’s not really ransom), for exposing classified data to the russians and lying directly about it repeatedly, Hillary Clinton actually left people to die in Benghazi, actually blamed a video for it, actually imprisoned the person who made said video.Clinton’s actual policies turned victory in Iraq into defeat, Syria into a mess, created ISIS, destabilized Libya, enabled Russia in the Ukraine and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.And that’s not even going into using the Clinton foundation for payola or protecting Bill Clinton from the consequences of his actions when it comes to sexually abusing women.
That also gives a clue as to how Trump should deal with this business, but that for a follow up post.
Those two factors mean along American’s uncertainty in the Obama economy mean that this tape notwithstanding this race isn’t over and anyone who thinks it is hasn’t been paying attention for the last year.
Closing thoughts:
- The irony of course is the truth of Trump’s statement there is nothing that increases a person of the opposite sex tolerance for bad behavior, mediocre looks, advanced age or disgusting habits as wealth power and fame. It’s the equivalent of beer goggles and has culturally acknowledged as a factor in woman’s selection of a mate since time immemorial.
- This release isn’t about convincing the general public that Trump is unacceptable. If this was the American Culture that I grew up in then Stacy McCain would be absolutely correct, however it not. Thanks to the ceaseless efforts of the left and the media we no longer have the culture that I grew up with that would have rejected Trump en masseover these remarks. We have a coarser, more vulgar culture where right and wrong are flexible things and standards are not what they are. One might even say that the left has enabled the conditions that will allow Trump to get past this with minor if any damage to his prospects.
No this is about convincing those who still have to values to allow the election of someone who not only is directly opposed to all you hold dear but will persecute you on every level. This is about tricking you into letting go of your one chance to stop your own destruction. They want you to lose your nerve. Furthermore they want the GOP to lose their nerve and the press will do all they can do enable it.
In other words they are counting on you to be suckers.
I’m still voting Trump and I’m still encouraging you to keep your nerve and do the same.
Update: It’s clear that many in the GOP are cutting and running in public and urging Trump to pull out of the race, that is sheer idiocy for three reasons.
- No matter how much you dislike what Trump said on that tape, he won the primaries. He was legally and legitimately chosen as the nominee of the GOP. Unless he drops dead or has a stroke or something it would be an illegitimate act to replace him on the ticket, particularly with someone, however qualified, who did not draw a single vote in the primaries.
- No matter how much you dislike the Trump voters, if you are a GOP incumbent or candidate in any state or country but the most red, you will need their votes to win an election. Going after Trump is not going to win you any liberal leaning voters and is going to cost you conservative ones, you would be much better off saying something like this“I am happy to accept Donald Trump’s apology to America’s women for his intemperate private remarks on that tape and in that same spirit I invite [insert opponent’s name here] to demand that Secretary Clinton apolgize to American people, to america’s women to the woman abused by her Husband and defamed by the Clintons and their surrogates for political gain.”
- Finally do you really think the Democrats are going to allow Trump to be replaced on the ballot at this stage? There will be lawsuits in 50 states challenging any attempt to pull him and the Bob Torricelli precedent notwithstanding you aren’t going to see a judiciary upholding such a move.
Update 3: For the 2nd time since deciding to support Trump after he clinched the GOP nomination a person I know and respect has asked to be pulled from my email list because of a post. That’s their right of course and I’ll respect it but I suggest rejecting my opinion is not going to make reality any better for conservatives, particularly under a Clinton administration.
Update 4: I respect Jonah Goldberg whose point is valid:
Either way, this video is not an aberration. It is not a special circumstance. It’s him. There’s no pivot in him. There’s no “presidential” switch to flip. He’s Donald Trump all the way down.
However given the reality that either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton will be the next president of the United States I ask Jonah this question:
If we concede that Donald Trump’s character is bad, Would it be better for the country to have a President of poor character who will be under intense scrutiny by the press, pols and law enforcement agencies (Trump) or to have a President of poor character who will be given a pass and or defended by the press, the pols and apparently the FBI regardless of what they say or do (Hillary).
I submit and suggest the answer is clearly the former.
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