This is pretty weird. A headline at
HotAir declares that "53% Of Democrats Say It’s Not Acceptable To Vote For A Candidate Who’s Done Immoral Things In His Private Life".
What could these folks have been thinking when they responded to this poll that way? How many people have not done something immoral in their private life? How many people have not harbored unkind thoughts, twisted or flouted the truth, coveted what they had no right to have, yielded to pride or lust or the temptation to eat, drink or smoke to the point that it becomes harmful? Probably no one.
Maybe these respondents, being Democrats, had the sexual transgressions of Donald Trump in mind when they answered the question and were simply opining that it was unacceptable to vote for a man who has had illicit affairs.
Yet how many of them, if they had had the opportunity, would have voted for Bill Clinton or Ted Kennedy in the 90s, or John Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson in the 60s. Probably all of them. And the sexual escapades of Clinton and Kennedy were conducted, some of them, while they were actually in office, and occurred in the White House itself. Not even his most implacable foes on MSNBC or CNN have accused Donald Trump of so tarnishing and degrading the office of the presidency.
So, it's hard to know what to make of the 53% of respondents who said that voting for men like Clinton and the Kennedy brothers is unacceptable when they all, or at least most of them, would have done it themselves.
But that aside, Donald Trump's behavior, at least prior to taking office, has been in some respects, awful, and those who've tried to make excuses for it have disgraced and discredited themselves. Especially is this true, as former G.W.Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson insists in a column at The Atlantic, of conservative Christian leaders.
Not only have they shamed themselves, Gerson argues, they've brought into grave disrepute the whole idea of Christian morality and integrity. They've made themselves look like hypocrites and opportunists, and it's hard to disagree with Gerson about this.
But he goes on to imply that those who voted for Trump are equally as guilty of having sold out their values for a mess of political pottage, and here I think he's mistaken. There's a big difference between excusing or winking at immoral conduct and voting for someone who has engaged in it. The first is unconscionable, but in our imperfect world the second might be the best of bad options.
Given the alternatives with which we were presented in 2016, a vote for Trump was not necessarily inconsistent with one's belief that he was/is a moral reprobate and that much of what he has done in his personal life, particularly in his sexual conduct, is vile. Here's a paraphrase of Gerson's catalogue of some of Mr.Trump's more egregious behaviors:
His past political stances (he once supported the right to partial-birth abortion), his character (he has bragged about sexually assaulting women), and even his language (he introduced the words p***y and s******e into presidential discourse) should disqualify him among conservatives, especially religious conservatives. This is a man who has cruelly publicized his infidelities, made disturbing sexual comments about his elder daughter, boasted about the size of his manhood on the debate stage, and his lawyer reportedly arranged a $130,000 payment to a porn "actress" to dissuade her from disclosing an alleged affair.
In most years such a record would indeed make it impossible for someone who believes our leaders should be virtuous to cast a vote for the man, but 2016 wasn't most years.
Mr. Trump's opponent in the race was Hillary Clinton who is herself at least as deeply compromised as he is. Whatever depravities Donald Trump can with justice be accused of can with equal justice be levied against Ms Clinton.
Did Mr. Trump before entering politics speak disparagingly about women as sex objects? Ms. Clinton actually sought to destroy the credibility of women who publicized her husband's treatment of them as sex objects.
Has Mr. Trump used vulgar language? Ms. Clinton was notorious among her secret service detail for her verbal abuse of them, abuse which was liberally salted with F-bombs.
Has Mr. Trump been dishonest in his public statements? Ms. Clinton has repeatedly lied to the American people about her reckless and illegal handling of classified documents when she was Secretary of State, among other things.
Did Mr. Trump treat his primary opponents abominably? Ms. Clinton, with the complicity of the DNC, rigged the Democratic primaries to ensure that her opponents, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, could not win.
Add to this abysmal record of moral failure the corruption of the Clinton Foundation and Global Initiative, her disregard for national security, and her own perhaps dubious sexual history and the argument that voters had a clear choice between a morally superior and a morally inferior candidate in the last election is risible.
The choice in 2016 was either to vote for one of two very flawed candidates or not vote at all. For those who deplored Ms Clinton's politics it was clear that to refrain from participating in the election was to ensure that she would gain the Oval Office and that we'd have another four to eight years of a mushy economy, little job growth, no relief from Obamacare, more progressive ideologues appointed to the judiciary, more onerous government regulations imposed on business and individuals, more erosion of our fundamental religious and constitutional liberties, more scandal in governmental agencies, more disastrous foreign policy blunders, and Bill Clinton back in the White House.
Mr. Trump, on the other hand, despite often acting like an adolescent septuagenarian in the primaries, promised he would do three things: Stop illegal immigration, restore our economy to a sound footing, and appoint judges whose rulings would be based on the law and the Constitution and not on their personal ideological bias. Despite opposition from his opponents he has made progress toward accomplishing all three.
So when writers like Michael Gerson, a Christian conservative, castigate Christian leaders for excusing Mr. Trump's character flaws, I'm right with him, but when he argues that those flaws should have made it impossible for those who profess a Christian value system to support him with their vote, I want to ask Mr. Gerson, what was the alternative?
