Dead Candidate Walking

The New York Times says that it’s probably not possible for the GOP to replace Trump as the nominee unless he resigns, dies or becomes incapacitated. And I don’t think he’s going to resign. He’s still got evangelicals, and he’s still got the mega-donors.

Elsewhere, though, it’s every Republican for her- or himself. I predict the RNC will leave Trump to his own devices and focus on congressional and state races. The Media Narrative at this point is that Trump may still be standing, but his campaign is toast. And then this ridiculous campaign season will finally lurch to its end.

Family Values Farce

A lot happened over the past several hours. Along with the release of the infamous Donald Lecherous Scumbag Trump video, apparently excerpts from Hillary Clinton infamous Goldman Sachs speeches have also been leaked, and as suspected she said things she is going to be pressured to disavow.

But I want to focus on Trump first. The current party line from the GOP is that Trump used bad language. Nobody should use bad language like that, especially about (sotto voce: white) women. We must denounce such use of language. But he’s still our candidate.

Will Trump be pressured to drop out? And would he? At this point, it doesn’t look like it. It’s way too late to replace Trump on the ballots. It probably would be possible for the GOP to announce that even though Trump is on the ballot his electors are free to vote for somebody else, but I’m not sure about that. I don’t think Trump would go quietly unless they paid him billions of dollars. Maybe not even then.

It’s fascinating, though, that a posse of “family values” evangelicals is standing by Trump. Here are Ralph Reed, Tony Perkins and Gary Bauer:

“Voters of faith are voting on issues like who will protect unborn life, defend religious freedom, create jobs, and oppose the Iran nuclear deal,” Faith and Freedom Coalition president Ralph Reed said in an email to BuzzFeed News. “Ten-year-old tapes of private conversation with a television talk show host rank very low on their hierarchy of concerns.”

Asked if he had any comment on the tape itself and if he was definitely standing by Trump, Reed said, “I think the statement is self explanatory.”

Tony Perkins, who leads the Family Research Council, also did not reject Trump in the wake of the revelations, but indicated that he doesn’t share Trump’s values.

“My personal support for Donald Trump has never been based upon shared values, it is based upon shared concerns about issues such as: justices on the Supreme Court that ignore the constitution, America’s continued vulnerability to Islamic terrorists and the systematic attack on religious liberty that we’ve seen in the last 7 1/2 years,” Perkins said in an email to BuzzFeed News.

“The comments are obviously disgusting and unfortunate,” Bauer said in an interview with BuzzFeed News. “But Donald Trump did not run as a evangelical or as somebody who ran the kind of campaign that a Pat Robertson would run.”

“We’ll still support him, still work hard for him,” Bauer said. “His policies are 100% better than Hillary Clinton’s for the country.”

“I don’t see how any values voter that is sensible would take a tape from 11 years ago with totally inappropriate language and says somehow that leads me as a voter to stay home or vote for Hillary Clinton or throw your vote away on a third party candidate,” Bauer said.

It’s beyond obvious that Donald Trump is a walking moral cesspool. Even Jonah Goldberg, who is a known idiot, realizes this. You cannot say you take the Ten Commandments — any of ’em — seriously and support Donald Trump. What’s wrong with these people?

I can think of two explanations. One, they think somehow they will maintain more influence in a Trump administration than in a Clinton administration. And maybe they would. Trump obviously doesn’t give a hoo-haw about religion, except when it can be made to reflect well on him somehow. He might very well support their anti-LGBT and anti-women agenda if they flatter him enough, because it’s obvious he doesn’t give a shit either way.

The other explanation is that these people have become so twisted that oppressing women and LGBT people is the only “morality” they care about any more, and all the stuff about lying, stealing, coveting, adultery , etc., are just details that can be sacrificed for their “greater good.”