The Donald's bid is now history
By
LeRoy Goldman
Hendersonville Times-News
October 16, 2016
October 16, 2016
Most
Americans share a common set of beliefs about the 2016 presidential
election. They don’t want to vote for Donald Trump or Hillary
Clinton because, for very different reasons, they don’t believe
either of them is qualified to be president.
Trump
has had plenty of time to demonstrate that he has the temperament,
demeanor and policy chops to be an effective president. He failed. In
fact, it’s worse than that. It’s not simply that he tried and
failed. It’s that he hasn’t even tried. And it makes no
difference whether the explanation for his lack of effort is because
he’s too lazy or too self-absorbed.
Clinton
has had plenty of time on the campaign trail and for decades prior to
that to demonstrate that she can be trusted. There can be no doubt
that she has spectacularly failed the trust test. Her trail of
untrustworthiness is so long and so blatant that it is breathtaking.
For
more than a quarter-century, Clinton has been twisting the truth for
a single purpose — her own political and pecuniary advantage.
There’s been Whitewater, the sacking of the White House Travel
Office staff, outsized profits from commodity trading, false claims
of being under sniper fire in Bosnia, the deception surrounding the
attack in Benghazi, and most recently there’s the matter of “pay
for play” regarding the Clinton Foundation and her use of a
home-brewed email system when she served as secretary of state.
The
thread that ties all of this behavior together is best captured in
Clinton’s own words in one of her speeches to Wall Street banks
that have recently come to light thanks to WikiLeaks. Clinton stated,
“But if everybody’s watching, you know, all of the backroom
discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little
nervous, to say the least. So, you need both a public and a private
position.”
Translated
into plain language, Clinton is saying, look, I can’t afford to
trust the American people with the truth so I’ll feed them
something other than the truth in order to make things work for me.
Or more simply, I get to lie when it serves my purpose. Clinton is a
serial liar, and that makes her dangerous, too dangerous to be
president. No wonder only about 11 percent of the American people
believe Clinton is honest and trustworthy.
However,
thanks to Trump, she’s on her way to the White House. He has become
her ticket to ride. By successfully demonizing Trump, she has managed
to minimize the vulnerability she faces on the trust issue. And Trump
has accommodated her at every turn. The irony of that reality is
stunning and surreal.
But
the recent release of the 2005 tapes containing Trump’s vulgar
comments about women as sex objects may turn out to be the straw that
breaks the backs of both camels, Trump and Clinton. Wouldn’t that
be lovely!
The
only way Trump can achieve something of value out of his star-crossed
quest is to step aside. I know he has said there is “zero chance”
he will drop out of the race. I know he’s tweeted, “I will never
drop out of the race, will never let my supporters down!” But I
will not be surprised to see him drop out.
He
faces a stark, binary choice. He can stay the course and suffer a
historic and humiliating defeat, or he can get out of the way and
bask in the afterglow of having demolished a Republican Party
incapable of governing the nation while at the same time having sown
the seeds of its rebirth.
Stop
for a moment and contemplate how different were the insurgent efforts
led by Trump and Bernie Sanders during the primaries this year. Both
challenged ruling oligarchs and bureaucrats in their respective
parties. Both called for nothing short of a revolution. At the outset
of their crusades, neither was taken seriously by their parties, the
media, the lobbyists or the general public.
Everybody
underestimated what fueled their respective candidacies: voter fury
aimed at Washington.
But
by the end of the primaries last spring, Trump had won while Sanders
had failed. Sanders ended up with his tail between his legs, urging
his supporters to rally behind Clinton. Many of them feel betrayed.
Many will not vote for Clinton. In fact, the day of reckoning for the
Democratic Party has only been delayed.
But
Trump and his supporters won the day. The GOP now must reform itself
or die. If Trump gets out of the line of fire, he preserves the focus
on the forthcoming reformation. If he stays the course, the focus
will become his humiliation at the polls on Nov. 8.
LeRoy
Goldman welcomes comments, is a Flat Rock resident, and can be reached at:
