"It is a disturbing revelation in this election that millions of Americans either embrace Trump’s venom or are oblivious to it." This is so sad....

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Trump voters should be held accountable
By Jennifer Rubin, September 7, 2016

Donald Trump for more than a year has pitched his loathsome message to the voters’ worst instincts (bigotry, resentment) in the most vulgar terms we have witnessed in a presidential election in at least a century.

He mocks the disabled. He ridicules women’s physical appearance. (First, he insulted Carly Fiorina’s face, now he says Hillary Clinton does not “look” presidential. Someone should ask what he means.)

He threatens and extols violence. He, as House Speaker Paul Ryan put it, dabbles in “textbook racism” when he asserts that an American-born federal judge (whom he calls a “Mexican”) cannot perform his job. He stereotypes African Americans (your lives are a “disaster,” he says), immigrants (“criminals and rapists”) and Jews (repeatedly).

He admires dictators who repress their people, kill their enemies and invade their neighbors. He finds in tragedy (the mass shooting in Orlando and a woman’s shooting in Chicago) grounds for praising himself. He compares military school to wartime service and calls wanton womanizing his own Vietnam. He has allegedly denied small-business people payment, forcing them to sue or settle for a fraction of what they are owed. He also has allegedly swindled thousands in his Trump University operation. He has had three wives, one of whom he boasted via a fake persona that he was cheating on. Readers have suggested an apt line of questioning for the debates: Mr. Trump, what is the meaning of “turn the other cheek”? The Golden Rule?


The Democratic National Committee released this video Aug. 27 showing a focus group of Republican voters explaining why they aren’t supporting Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. (Democratic National Committee)

We know a lot about Trump. We, however, have learned even more about voters from the nomination of such a grotesque figure. It is not a pretty picture.

First, so-called values voters don’t have them, at least they don’t vote based on them. They might vote on an issue such as abortion (in the mistaken impression Trump will stick to a list of conservative judges for appointment to the Supreme Court). These people are not exhibiting “values” in any sense of the word; they are one-issue voters, gullible ones at that. The press and the political world as a whole would do well to drop the pretense that these are guardians of the nation’s values.

Second, women and minorities (Catholics, Jews, African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanics) are the canaries in the coal mine. They are acutely sensitive to repression and demagogues, able to recognize quickly the noxious fumes of intolerance. It is a disturbing revelation in this election that millions of Americans either embrace Trump’s venom or are oblivious to it. Tolerance is a casual accessory they don when it suits them and discard when the chips are down.

Third, at some level a huge majority of Americans know that Trump is bad for the country. In a Washington Post-Survey Monkey poll of more than 74,000 registered voters in all 50 states plus D.C., 61 percent  think Trump would threaten the nation’s well-being while 37 percent do not. (Well-being may be America’s moral fabric, its democratic institutions or its security.) A stunning 46 percent of voters think he would threaten the country “a great deal.” Nevertheless, according to the RealClearPolitics average, nearly 43 percent of voters are supporting him. That’s a lot of people who think he is a threat, even a big threat, but are voting for him anyway. (Fifty-five percent say Clinton’s a threat, while 44 percent don’t; in her case, the percentage of people supporting her is virtually identical to the percentage who don’t consider her a threat.)

When all the ballots are cast, the postmortem studies begin and the blame game for Trump’s rise is in full swing, we might consider laying responsibility for his relative success where it belongs — at the feet of voters who knew exactly what they were getting and chose him anyway. What’s the basis on which we should elect leaders? What kind of figure do we want representing us on the national stage? Are there more important things to being president than checking the box on marginal tax rates? Food for thought when we survey the wreckage in November.
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