Donald Trump leads way in America’s race to the bottom
If the former US president was facing even a half-competent rival, his moral toxicity would have ended his career long ago.
The particular moral challenge Donald Trump’s character poses to America’s political health was captured by his divergent defences to the latest legal bombshell to explode under him in a New York courtroom this week.
After a jury in a civil trial found that he sexually abused journalist E. Jean Carroll in a department store fitting room and subsequently defamed her, it awarded her $US5 million ($7.46 million) in damages. Trump thundered a denial on his media platform, Truth Social: “I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHO THIS WOMAN IS. THIS VERDICT IS A DISGRACE – A CONTINUATION OF THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME!”
The characteristically capitalised self-exculpation needs to be read in the context of what he said under oath during the litigation itself.
Trump didn’t appear in court – he was too busy on the golf course at Turnberry last week to bother denying allegations of rape (a claim the jury rejected) and sexual assault (which they upheld). But he was interviewed on camera by Carroll’s lawyers a few weeks ago.
In the course of this deposition, her legal team tried to make the case that Trump had long demonstrated a propensity for the sort of behaviour of which he was accused. They confronted him with his words in the infamous Access Hollywood tape of an unbroadcast conversation released a few weeks before the 2016 election. The exchange went like this:
Plaintiff’s lawyer: “And you say – and again this has become very famous – in this video, ‘I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.’ That’s what you said. Correct?”
Trump: “Well, historically, that’s true with stars.”
Lawyer: “It’s true with stars that they can grab women by the pussy?”
Trump: “Well, that’s what, if you look over the last million years I guess that’s been largely true. Not always, but largely true. Unfortunately or fortunately.”
Lawyer: “And you consider yourself to be a star?”
Trump: “I think you can say that, yeah.”
So Trump’s injured defence to the disgraceful allegation that he sexually abuses women seems to be: Maybe I do. BUT I ABSOLUTELY DIDN’T DO IT TO THIS PARTICULAR WOMAN!
There are better defences that Trump supporters rushed to make – and they have a certain validity. They pointed out that the allegations related to an incident almost three decades ago; that his accuser couldn’t remember in what year it happened; that she went public only in 2019 when he was president and preparing to run for re-election; that the lawsuit was funded by his political enemies; that the jury hailed from Manhattan where he got just 12 per cent of the vote last year; that Democrats denouncing him are vocal defenders of the presidents John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton, both of whom have been more plausibly accused of sexual offences.
For all these reasons this latest development won’t faze most of his supporters. If the reaction of the friendly crowd at his “town hall meeting” broadcast on CNN on Wednesday night is a guide, it seems they long ago bought their end of the Faustian bargain by which he delivers them from the iniquities of modern America and they get their preening Mephistopheles.
We haven’t yet got to the point of testing the literal truth of his famous claim that “I could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Ave and not lose any votes”, but you don’t have to be an alarmist to think we might be getting close.
The reaction of Tommy Tuberville, a Republican senator from Alabama, summed up the Trump cult’s attitude: the verdict “makes me want to vote for him twice”, he said, a slightly maladroit expression of fealty given that Trump continues to insist he lost the 2020 election only because of voter fraud.
What about the small but important middle of Republican voters whose doubts about the man’s character have gnawed away at their partisan preferences?
Whatever they think of the validity of the court’s verdict, does Trump’s own sworn testimony that he expects what we might call certain privileges as “a star” make them think he is unfit for office?
The problem is that even as the evidence about Trump’s despicable character has become clearer, the alternatives get worse too. America is in a presidential race to the bottom that seems to be operating on the trajectory and at the speed of gravity.
If the choice were between Donald Trump and Jesus Christ or Abraham Lincoln, things might be different. Heck, if it were a choice between Trump and anyone half-competent, half-decent, half-sentient and only half-senile, Trump’s career would be over.
But it isn’t. The looming choice is between him and Joe Biden, a barely conscious leader, somnolently presiding over a country with falling living standards, declining world power, a porous border through which illegal immigrants are streaming, a nation in the grip of a cultural revolution that is tearing up traditional values, mores and even science.
There are, of course, alternative candidates for Republican voters. But none has caught on yet. Opinion polls still show Trump with a large lead over his challengers for the party’s nomination.
Yet the optimist can cling to some hope. National polls are usually meaningless at this stage. The decision comes down to individual voter choices in state after state beginning next February.
The question they must ask themselves is do they want a candidate who imperfectly captures their aspirations and anxieties but whose personal character they can at least feel is worthy of the office? Or are they happy to choose again a man who acknowledges and indeed embraces his own moral toxicity but stoops to deny only specific instantiations of it?
The Times
More Coverage
Shrink your waist in five weeks – pasta and wine allowed
Over-45s carrying too much weight around their middles get some advice on how to lose it.
Charles to take doctors (but not homeopath) on Australia trip
The King, who is receiving cancer treatment, will undertake an 11-day tour which includes a number of concessions to prevent him from being overworked.