Thanks to the revelation of Donald Trump’s horribly degrading and potentially criminal comments about women, his campaign is circling the drain. That’s the only conclusion you can draw from a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that shows Hillary Clinton out to a 14-point lead in a two-way race and an 11-point lead with Jill Stein and Gary Johnson included. This poll also contained a dire warning for Republican lawmakers–a majority of registered voters want them to either disavow Trump or tell him to drop out.
But if you believe one Trump supporter from Cincinnati, all of this is a lot of fuss over nothing–and much of it is caused by a fifth column in the GOP. On Monday morning–hours before this bombshell poll was released–Steve Inskeep of NPR’s “Morning Edition” spoke with a number of Cincinnati-area voters to get their take on Sunday night’s debate. It’s part of NPR’s “Divided States” series.
One of the voters was Linda Caudill, who owned four Cincinnati-area branches of Allstate before retiring a few years ago. She is an ardent Trump supporter, and for much of the summer helped organize Trump supporters along intersections. She was enthralled with the Donald from his very first speech–despite his degrading remarks about Latinos. She had no problem with Trump’s tone; earlier, she told Inskeep that the only people she encountered who had an issue with it were “liberal people” on social media and “snobbier Republican people” in the area GOP establishment.
It came as no surprise that the release of the tape didn’t change her mind. What was surprising, though, was what she thought about those raising a stink about Trump saying he wanted to “move on” women and “grab their p**sy.”
“(T)he only people really who are having an issue with this are the Hillary people and the traitor Republicans, such as Rob Portman, John McCain, Jeff Flake, Kelly Ayotte.”
I did a double take when I heard this on Monday morning, and to listen to this twice when I came home to believe what I was hearing. You mean to tell me that a Republican has no right to condemn these tapes for the debauched and degrading bilge that they are?
Caudill must have been taking a cue from the Donald himself, who told his surrogates to blast those who condemned the tapes. Trump wants to brand those who have abandoned him over the tapes as being “more concerned about their political future than they are about the country.”
No, Linda. The Republicans who are abandoning Trump are concerned about the future of the country. They don’t want a depraved and debauched jerk to have access to nuclear codes. And if you think the GOP has no right to throw you overboard because you find it acceptable to degrade women, it sounds like you’re the one more concerned about your hide than the country.
But what makes this particularly outrageous is that by branding anyone who abandons Trump over these tapes as traitors, Trump and his supporters aren’t just attacking elected officials. They are attacking average Americans–including people who wanted no part of Trump long before those tapes came out. Apparently in Trumpland, having a sense of decency is an act of treason. And apparently that applies to speaking out against degrading women. As if I needed another reason not to have any part of Trump’s idea of “making America great,” here’s reason number 1,000 (at least).
Between us, my girlfriend and I know at least six people who are staunchly Republican and staunchly social conservative–and yet, cannot bring themselves to vote for Trump because they think he is morally unfit for office. Are you willing to tell them to their faces that they’re traitors, Linda? Unless you are, then if you have anything in you, you owe every Republican who has turned their backs on Trump an apology.
Barring a complete collapse, Hillary is going to win easily in November. But this sort of talk is yet more reason to ensure this isn’t just a defeat, but a landslide. It’s the only way to put the GOP on notice they cannot foist a candidate on this country who injects so much poison into our discourse and get away with it.
