The Donald's bid is now history

The Donald's bid is now history

By

LeRoy Goldman

Hendersonville Times-News
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:

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