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Why was this the Breaking Point?
I want to find a way to express the question I’m about to ask in the spirit I mean it, which is a spirit of genuine and humble puzzlement. I’m not just trying to say, “I told you so.” I’m honestly confused, and it makes me feel — of all things — lonely, as if maybe I’ve been away from home for so long that I don’t really understand my own country anymore.
What I don’t understand is why so many people seem to be genuinely surprised by the emergence of a tape of Donald Trump making vulgar remarks. As everyone here knows, I’ve misunderstood everything about this campaign from the very beginning, which necessarily means that there’s a lot about my own country that I don’t understand. At first, I just didn’t take his campaign seriously. Yes, he was getting lots of media attention, and let’s be honest, I gave him a lot of attention on Ricochet, too: Like the rest of the media, I fell for it and gave him free attention. I thought it was because his campaign was good for a laugh. It never even occurred to me at first that a significant number of Americans would really vote for him. I assumed that within a few days or weeks he’d go the way of other fleeting media sensations.
But to my astonishment, his polling numbers held up — and then he won state after state in the primaries. You all know how I felt about that. Among other things, I was stunned, absolutely floored, that so many Americans, so many people who I thought I knew and understood, thought Donald Trump should be the president. It seemed so absurd to me that I almost couldn’t bring myself to argue that he shouldn’t be: It seemed self-evident. I’ve been unable to shake the feeling throughout that this has all been a madcap practical joke that somehow got out of hand. And as this has progressed I’ve felt, increasingly, lonely — as if everyone but me is on a joke that I don’t get. And frightened, too.
But I’ve believed many of the things that people who support Trump say about why they support him. One thing that many people say, and some have said on Ricochet, is that Trump’s vulgar comments (whichever ones we’re discussing, because every day seems to bring new ones) are a feature, not a bug. I’ve seen quite a few people on Ricochet saying things like, “We’re sick to death of political correctness. We’re sick of hyper-sensitivity and being told there are things we can’t say. Trump says whatever he feels like and he never apologizes for it. We need someone like that to open the Overton Window and take a sledgehammer to Washington. A normal politician won’t be able to shake things up.” I think that’s a fair paraphrase of the sentiments of many Trump supporters, don’t you? I don’t agree with the argument, at all, but I think I understand it.
So why is that tape — which to me just sounds like Trump being Trump — the straw that broke the camel’s back? Or the one that seems to be, anyway. So many people seem honestly surprised that he said those things. Is the surprise a pose? If so, why this, why now? It’s a very offensive tape, but to me it’s not more offensive than so many of the other things he’s said, the things that at first made me think his candidacy was a joke, and later made me think I was in a nightmare from which I couldn’t wake up. This is the candidate who said, “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters” — and I’d begun to believe he was right, that he was popular because he said outrageous and offensive things and refused ever to back down.
Why is this different? Why would it change anyone’s mind about Trump? If, like me, you see this as “just more of the same,” why do you think other people are reacting to it as if it’s different? Is it because his comments were about sex? Is that the ultimate American taboo?
I’m asking in good faith, I promise. I’m truly not trying to say, “I told you so.” I genuinely don’t understand, and not understanding makes me feel lonely and stupid and out-of-it. I was taught long ago that it’s better to admit that I don’t understand, raise my hand, and ask my question — however dumb –than to pretend everything makes sense because I don’t want to reveal how much I don’t know. So that’s my question: Why is this worse than all the other things he’s said?
Published in General
It isn’t any worse. This latest “revelation” is being used by the usual suspects – squishes, globalists, open borders nuts, leftists, left-libertarians, and Muh Morality poseurs – to demean those of us who believe American sovereignty is worth defending and who are tired of the Republican so-called leadership kowtowing to the Democrats’ every whim.
Three thoughts:
I agree Claire that he was appalling from day one. But if there is an explanation… as someone said, Muslims and Mexicans are a minority. But everyone has a sister, a daughter, a mother, a wife…
I am with you on this Claire. I do not find his remarks surprising or out of character.
If we reach a point where Americans can just say “words don’t matter” (and it appears that we have), then nothing matters.
It is not a surprise to anyone that Trump says these things – we all know he is a boor and a lout and a womanizer. But this gives all those politicians who endorsed him a convenient political jumping off point. He had a disastrous week after the first debate, his poll numbers were dropping, and this gives them a good excuse to jump off the train.
It’s not. This is an ugly race with two ugly candidates and I think it comes down to pure politics. I don’t think morality had anything to do with the abandonment.
@claireberlinski I don’t know the answer to your question as to why this Trump video taken eleven years ago may be the “straw that broke the camel’s back”. I can relate my own reaction. I am not a Trump supporter. I was not planning to vote for either Trump or Clinton. However, I was edging towards voting for Trump because I think the Left needs to incur a major setback, and I can’t envision a more effective hit below the water line for them than to have Trump elected president.
However the appearance of the video towards the conclusion of a long campaign convinced me that I won’t vote for him. It was akin to when you put a key piece into a puzzle, which while it doesn’t complete the puzzle it gives you an important insight into how the puzzle should be completed.
Trump knew this video was out there (along with many others that will surface before election day). Yet while he was gaining momentum going into the first debate, he lost a week, campaigning and 10% of the women vote in the polls by focusing on an overweight beauty contestant. He has taken no action to counteract the belief that he denigrates women. Richard Goodwin had a column in the New York Post recently concluding that President Obama had learned nothing in his 7½ years in office. Trump has consistently demonstrated the same defect in his campaign.
Wrong again. This isn’t a breaking point. It is what it is.
The only thing that has broken is the ability of some on the right to shut up and pretend. You know — like we are all supposed to do . Salute the Speaker and Respect the Nominee, and all that.
There’s no breaking point in the large sense just because some flip-floppers have flip-flopped.
Game on, Garth.
Some particularly weak-willed individuals heard the enemy was granting amnesty, and they broke cover. We’ll find them in No-Man’s Land, just the same.
Idiots.
I’m not venturing into predictions — I’ve learned my limits. But I’d like to know why you think that. (I mean, that “it is what it is” is definitely true, no argument from me on that.)
Update: Just saw that you clarified; ignore this comment.
@mikelaroche This is not a justification for the latest Trump video. It is a rant about your frustration with the current political environment, and it is beneath you. Calling your opponents names won’t convince them of the correctness of your argument.
Thank you, I wanted to hear from someone for whom it was “the breaking point.” Would I be right to say that for you it was the sense that the guy simply can’t or won’t learn?
None of this surprises anyone. This quite literally is opportunistic hypocrisy by both parties. The country as a whole wont care in the long run. This is the country that elected, then Reelected Bill Clinton, the man with bimbo eruptions. The man that turned Monica Lewinsky into a humidor in the oval office. If you expected that this country voted by some code of chivalry and morality, well, that ship sailed as long time ago. Americans vote interests.
I’m not sure whether to be relieved that I’m not alone or even more baffled. I guess I’m glad I’m not the only one. Who else feels this way? (By “this way,” I mean realizing that you just don’t intuitively understand some aspect of your native country — like hearing your mom speak a language you didn’t even know she spoke, maybe.)
You’re definitely not alone. Your description of the experience of watching this play out mirrors my experience of it very closely. Just from reading and listening to a lot of #NeverTrumpers, I think there are a lot of us having similar experiences.
Remember that Ted Cruz was not “likeable.”
It bothers me that many Americans seem to prefer genuine pond scum.
Yes, that’s correct. However, once I did that, all of the other objections I had came roaring back, most of which are in the foreign policy area. I think it is very unlikely I would change back and vote for him.
Did you hear that? The elections over! Yay Hillary Clinton! Yay war with Russia!
I think the folks acting surprised by the tape are just that, acting. They cant’ be surprised about him nor that the the Democrats would have been holding things like this to release at appropriate times. When folks were dismissing Trump as a clown or embracing him as a savior, my view was that we shouldn’t dismiss him because he was a man on horseback. Such faux leaders appear when a country has sunk to a level of dysfunction and corruption that people reach for some one who will pull them out of it. Top down administrative states are familiar with this phenomena. Countries with black law, the napoleonic code like France, Spain, all of Latin America don’t accommodate changes, manage interests, reform as easily as ground up emergent systems with common law. We are becoming an administrative state and thus seek, as some did with Obama, (a singularly unqualified person) and now with Trump; leaders we can project our hopes on. It’s broken fix it. Both said they’d fix it. It seldom works out that way and certainly cannot here. France is smaller more homogeneous attracts the best and the brightest into government and enjoys a tradition from the mercantilist Colbert. Like the Japanese, the most homogeneous large nation on earth, they’ve figured out how to run an administrative state as well as anyone could. We can’t and wont and may never learn that fact.
It wasn’t. Hillary Clinton still must be stopped. Not one thing has changed with regard to that.
Poll numbers….. Trump was already heading lower, with only 2 more debates to change the trajectory. As the first debate showed, Trump is unlikely to do the preparation work necessary for a win in the remaining debates. The tapes gave those who had jumped on the Trump train a moment in which they could reassess. They had jumped on for political expediency, i.e. They didn’t have the courage or desire to fight the party. So the tape was released at a time that it was almost certain Trump was destined to lose. People recalculated…. do I ride the Trump train to certain defeat or do I get off now and as a bonus if I get off now I can do a little virtue signaling in the process. God I am starting to lose respect for politicians…..
Why do you think this is the Breaking Point?
What is new? Just because MSNBC is running it 24/7 in conjunction with the Clinton campaign? It is theatre, just like Hillary’s townhall with the fake and choreographed question from a little girl with a red ribbon in her hair.
I agree, shocking to find people are shocked over this bit of classic Trump. I expect it reflects what a lot of us already thought. He can’t win. So now it’s time to jump ship. Too bad so many got on board
I didn’t and still don’t think a significant number of Trump’s primary voters knew the man well. I think they thought they knew him because they had seen his TV show and, after all, he was on the ‘news’ frequently though many or most of these folks rarely ever actually watch or listen to ‘news’. So, with a misunderstanding based on scant information they saw Trump as the One who could break the Establishment, get rid of the speech codes and re-direct some of those ill-gotten gains their way. I base this analysis on the conversations I’ve had with early Trump supporters here in the Kentucky trenches, so I could be way off, who knows?
No one is more concerned about the politically correct speech codes or the overwhelming regulatory state than I am but I’ve never been convinced that a foul-mouthed bully is either capable of correcting course nor very interested in doing so.
I believe that the only way anyone could be genuinely shocked at anything dug up from Mr. Trump’s past is that they didn’t take just a little time to investigate that past on their own, simply buying the line which he with much help from all the media gave out to them.
I must agree with Mr Clemens, “Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.” M. Twain
Yeah, I think I’m in agreement with those who think this isn’t actually the straw that broke the camel’s back, but is being used as such in order for Republican politicians to make a face-saving exit from the stench of a losing ticket. If Trump didn’t screw up the first debate (and, more importantly, the post-debate news cycles) this still would have been bad, but I don’t think everyone would be running to the lifeboats.
For me it wasn’t the tape itself. It was the fact that the tape was it for so many others.
I was a NeverTrumper who had come around to Trump because 1) Trump means not Hillary, and 2) he recently released a list of constitutionalists he would nominate for SCOTUS.
I was a NeverTrumper because I support small, limited government and free trade. Trump is clueless about those issues so I was waiting for, and even promoting here on Ricochet, the emergence of someone somewhat like that. The savior never emerged so I was left with Trump, who at least had a chance of destroying enough of the power structure that something better might emerge.
Than came the tape, followed by the mass defections. It feels like a last minute movement might finally be emerging that would, however imperfectly, reflect classical liberal principles. The choice between continuing to support Trump and joining that movement is a no brainier. I am off the Trump bandwagon.
Trump can no longer win, so now there isn’t even that excuse for supporting him. And with a small government movement possibly developing, and with Clinton’s status and prestige falling lower and lower, even as she wins the election, maybe we can reduce the damage while building a movement for constitutional government.
My thoughts exactly, with one small addition. This conversation was recorded in what, 2005? So they trot it out now? And what was Hillary doing in 2005, giving speeches for $20K a minute?
No one is honestly surprised. The alternative to making this the weekend’s binders full of women or 47% or 1970s foreign policy would be to write about wikileaks. But that would involve effort, background knowledge and, well, journalism. Better to fall in line with the establishment candidate and hope the insurgency will go away.
Of course, people’s desperation on the immigration issue is not mentioned here. Why ascribe any rational calculation to GOP voters?
Well I never liked Trump, and I still don’t. So this changes nothing for me other than making me smile as I see all the Trump establishment weasls squirm trying to explain how this isn’t who Trump really is. The fact that Trump’s herd of cats is falling apart, is because the Trump campaign is bad at its job, of damage control. They couldn’t even put out a timely and sincere sounding apology. Trump won over the establishment, because he was a winner. He doesn’t look like a winner any more. His fanatics are unaffected as we can see from some of the comments. After all how many interceptions can a QB throw before the fans start booing him?
I’m also genuinely confused why this is anything. I also suspect it is cover for those who’ve gotten on board and have been wanting to get off.
The main thing to learn from this election is that the desire for big government is greater than we thought. I figured they were all over in that party. But there were a bunch in this party who just didn’t like the idea of them running the show. There was never one of them running in this party until this year, so now they are out and influencing.
The reluctant are just those who don’t want Clinton so they cup their hands around their eyes and focus only on the things that allow them to vote Trump. Perhaps for them this is someone sticking a video in their cupped line of vision?