Trump's reported affair: It isn't about values

Jan 26, 2018 at 08:54 am by clervin


Regardless of which party you identify with, it isn’t really about values. Both sides of the political debate only preach values when it’s convenient for them-claiming the moral high ground.

So here’s a news flash: Whether or not Donald Trump had an affair with a porn star in 2006 then paid her off will not matter in subsequent elections.

Some of the media-political commentators I’ve read want the public to be so outraged at Donald Trump’s behavior that they finally turn on him, and I’ve got news for them. It ain't going to happen.

It’s sad to say perhaps, but this is about political expediency. Numerous women came out during the presidential campaign accusing Trump of unwanted sexual advances or even sexual assaults. His locker room braggadocio with Billy Bush on Access: Hollywood repulsed most who heard it also. He was elected anyway.

Supposedly, we should be upset at how President Trump says outrageous things and gets away with them. But what we are really seeing is the left getting worn down by its own hysteria over this or that tweet not being enough to overthrow President Trump from office, while the rest of the country prefers to remain focused on the Trump economic recovery, with all its paycheck raises, bonuses, tax cuts and cuts to red tape.

Some pundits now charge Christians who continue to support the President with hypocrisy.

However as Robert Jeffress, pastor at Dallas' First Baptist Church and unofficial leader of Trump's evangelical advisory council, explained during the campaign, Christians are not endorsing Trump’s lifestyle. They are making a choice between one candidate, Donald Trump -- who is pro-life, pro-religious liberty, pro-conservative justices of the Supreme Court -- and another candidate, Hillary Clinton, who has an opposite view on all of those issues."

This argument about choices ought to appeal to liberal Democrats since it’s the same one they made supporting Bill Clinton against impeachment.

Because of his “pro-women” (pro-choice) position on public policy issues, anything apparently anti-women he did privately had to be forgiven. Consensual sex with an intern was forgivable, and dutiful Hillary with the serpentine James Carville, took care of the long list of “bimbo eruptions” that threatened to derail the progressive march to the left.

Trump’s supporters will tolerate anything he says or allegedly did because the real thing that matters is that he brings home the bacon.

The enraged left doesn’t understand that choice. They’re waiting for the unwashed masses in flyover country to condemn him for his tweets. 

Those on the left hoping Trump’s supporters will finally turn on him might want to re-visit another Bill Clinton tidbit of wisdom: “It’s the economy, stupid.”

The forgotten unemployed or under-employed from the Obama economic “recovery” of the 2007 recession who tilted the rust-belt states to Trump in 2016 will determine the fate of the populist Trump’s agenda in 2018 and reelection campaign in 2010.

Sections: Voices