It’s going to get worse for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his party. Much worse. Normal candidates might have realised they were bumping along the bottom of their election — if not, their life — when a video emerged of them bragging, as a newly-wed, about forcing themselves on women. But not the man who promises to make America great again. No, Trump’s so-called apology video was even more incompetent and incoherent than the rest of his campaign to date. And that’s quite an achievement for a man who has attacked a grieving, Gold Star family.
Trump pretended he was a different man. A changed man. A man humbled by meeting real people on the campaign trail. “Anyone who knows me, knows these words don’t reflect who I am,” he said, before dismissing the whole thing as a distraction. But then he dropped the humility and apology shtick for not-so-subtle hint of how he intends to play this.
“I’ve said some foolish things, but there’s a big difference between the words and actions of other people,” he said. “Bill Clinton has actually abused women, and Hillary has bullied, attacked, shamed and intimidated his victims.”
If you think talk of sex is a distraction, you probably shouldn’t make it clear you’re going to continue the conversation at the next TV debate. And you probably shouldn’t attack a wife for her husband’s affairs if you want to win back a couple of women voters. Even if that wife is your opponent.
Then again, this is a Republican nominee who urged the world via Twitter to check out the non-existent sex tape of a former Miss Universe who criticised him for demeaning her. This is a presidential candidate who has made an appearance in part of a soft porn video. This is a supposed leader who takes political advice from Roger Ailes, who was forced out of Fox News after numerous allegations of sexual harassment.
This is Donald Trump: a man no longer fit for polite company. His name will be torn off walls just as Ailes’ was. Republican candidates up and down the land will be chased to election day with their previous endorsements and quotes praising the groper-in-chief. Condemning Trump’s words will not be enough to save them. It was just a few days ago that the US senator in New Hampshire, Kelly Ayotte, said “absolutely” when asked if she would tell kids to look up to Trump. She has since said she “mis-spoke”. But no amount of regret and criticism will erase that foolish misjudgement.
Ayotte’s misjudgement is really shared by an entire party establishment that is now stampeding for the doors. Republican leaders thought they could cutely tiptoe between their Trump-loving base and Trump-disgusted moderates. Just as they have tried to appease the Tea Party, Obama-hating fringe for the last eight years. Now they find themselves consumed by their own compromises.
You know it when you see it. That moment when an election turns decisively. Not a blip, not a gaffe, not a bad few days. But instead the point of no return for candidates and undecided voters alike. In 2008 you could sense it in the 24-hour period around the first debate: when John McCain suspended his campaign, then revived it, ahead of his big moment on stage with Barack Obama. Erratic was the rap against McCain, and erratic was how he behaved. Four years later, it came with the 47 per cent video of Mitt Romney talking at a private fund-raiser. Out-of-touch elitist was the caricature, and that’s how Romney sounded behind closed doors.
Now we have the grotesque video of Donald Trump bragging: “Grab them by the [expletive]. You can do anything.” With it, Trump showed he is indeed the sum of all the sexist snippets we’ve heard so far. The basket of deplorables just found their Mr Universe.
There is no point in pretending that Trump can claw his way back from here. He has now confirmed that he disdains women, and many women voters will surely return the favour. Until now, Trump’s defenders liked to justify his remarks about Rosie O’Donnell and Megyn Kelly by saying that the GOP nominee was just an entertainer. That’s not possible any more. Trump’s disgusting comments were made in private, not as a public performance. And that’s precisely why they are indelible.
Trump was hardly in good shape with women voters before he slobbered over the prospect of assaulting them. They have represented the majority for almost 40 years of presidential elections, and this cycle will be no exception.Given his disastrous position with minorities, Trump’s sole hope was to win among white voters. But he was already losing to Clinton among white women: a voting group that Romney won. There simply aren’t enough white voters for Trump to win without sweeping the votes of white women. “I pledge to be a better man tomorrow and will never, ever let you down,” Trump said in his half-baked apology video.
Of all the unbelievable words that have come out of his pouting lips, these may be the least credible. Trump let his party down early in the morning, live on national television. The only remaining question in this election is whether his party can rescue anything of its own reputation even as he flushes his own down the sewer.
On the campaign trail John McCain liked to quote the bleak joke from Charles Schulz, the cartoon creator of the perennial loser Charlie Brown: “It always looks darkest just before it gets totally black.”
It’s time to say good night to the Republican party as we have known it for the last eight years.
— Guardian News & Media Ltd
Richard Wolffe is chief digital and marketing officer at Global Citizen, a non-profit organisation dedicated to ending extreme poverty. He is the author of Renegade: The Making of a President, Revival: The Struggle for Survival Inside the Obama White House and The Message: The Re-Selling of President Obama.
