Go Evangelicals, you’ve hit the big leagues where cash and favors rendered ALWAYS equals penance. The neon cherry on top: the political chance to battle on through yet another news cycle.Donald and the Enablers
Mike Pence might think of himself as an altruist or a hero. He’s an accomplice, by Bret Stephens
Donald Trump emerged the victor from his debate Sunday night with Hillary Clinton, which means he slightly exceeded expectations by not spontaneously combusting on stage, which means his ardent loyalists have again absolved him of sin. “Congrats to my running mate @realDonaldTrump on a big debate win!” tweeted Mike Pence as soon as it ended. “Proud to stand with you as we #MAGA.”.That’s “Make America Great Again,” though at this stage in the campaign it could equally mean “Mount Another Genital Assault.”
The Indiana governor is supposed to be the sober side of Trump-Pence, the guy who keeps cool, knows his policy brief and imposes ideological discipline on a ticket that would otherwise blow whichever way Mr. Trump puffs. But that misreads Mr. Pence’s role in this disastrous GOP season. Mr. Pence isn’t his boss’s junior political partner. He’s his moral enabler.
I use “enabler” in the psychiatric sense, meaning, as Merriam-Webster has it, “one who enables another to persist in self-destructive behavior (as substance abuse) by providing excuses or by making it possible to avoid the consequences of such behavior.” The enabler gets the kids to school when you’re passed out drunk, mops up the mess in the bathroom, pays the bills, and makes things seem OK when they aren’t. Enablers like to think of themselves as altruists or heroes. In truth they’re accomplices.
Truth is clearly optional for the Trump-Pence ticket. Particularly when more GOP brokers like Paul Ryan and John McCain (who EVER thought we’d assert that) have pulled their own ethics to the fore and in some ways have turned their backs on the pitiful Republican hopefuls.In the most hideous of Mr. Trump’s now-infamous sentences, it’s hard to decide which part is most repellent: the predatory verb “grab,” the dehumanized object “them,” or the pornographic prepositional phrase “by the p—.”Normal people understand this, which is why Mr. Trump’s presidential chances are now next to nil. But his Republican enablers are not normal people.
Seriously? Just what “values” do Perkins and the 70 year-old groping orangutang share? A deep need for public adoration prying money from Evangelical wallets? Perennially lording it over the “lesser” amongst them?
The pointed-Jeff Danziger, via Vermont’s Rutland Herald.
Stephens shared some putrid but plausible motivational causation by none other than Mayor Noun, Verb, 9/11. Huuuuuge Drumpf Enabler, is the rude Rudy.
Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, variously defended the Republican nominee by invoking Jesus Christ and Monica Lewinsky’s stained blue dress, which is the type of disgusting association you’d expect from a defrocked priest.
Instead, Mr. Pence has thrown himself into the work with relish, constantly vouchsafing the character of “this good man” Donald Trump… Like every other enabler, Mr. Pence is desperate to make true what he knows is not.
If Mr. Pence is shocked, shocked to discover Mr. Trump is a cad, then he’s a fool.
My guess is that it means the current GOP is nearly beyond redemption.
On Nov. 9 Republican voters will likely wake up to the reality that they have lost the White House, again, and that they have nobody but themselves to blame, again. As with every addict and enabler, the surest path to recovery begins at rock bottom.
Jeff Danziger, The Rutland Herald.
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The Donald began his life and CV from moral rock bottom, gold escalator or no gold escalator. And as anyone living below a decent ethical sea level will verify, you can’t survive in that hell without partners on the dole spewing desperate hope for daylight.
At this point Paul Ryan and the growing list of GOP evacuees appear, by contrast alone, worthy of a wee sliver of respect… while this twin dose of cowardly Enabler / Opportunist are as low down as Rush Limpbalz and Sean The Horror Hannity.
