I am not often given to understatement so note this one well: I am no fan of Donald Trump.
There is no need for me to choose among the many available descriptions of him — boorish, undisciplined, ideologically mercurial, rhetorically overheated but undernourished, etc.; you are perfectly capable of choosing your own. Since this election is more reminiscent of Animal House than Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, however, I will say that if he attempted to join my fraternity I would happily blackball him in a New York minute. Indeed, I will find it exceedingly difficult to vote for him even for an office whose ethical and moral bar is as low as the presidency of the United States.
But then I see articles in the major media like this one on CNN, which begins:
As the countdown to the November 8 election proceeds, one major party candidate continues his jihad against American democracy, twisting the knife ever deeper not just into himself and his unhinged quest for the most powerful position on the planet but into the very heart of our body politic.
And I think: Trump is depressing and occasionally even disgusting, but the universe he lives in is closer to mine than the one inhabited by all the liberals who agree with the esteemed author of the above article, Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe, mentor of that noted Constitutionalist Barack Obama and on almost every liberal’s short list for Supreme Court justice for a generation or so.
Indeed, it seems to me that the signal derangement of our time lies not with Donald Trump but the Democratic Party, which has so eagerly embraced such an honesty- and integrity- and legally-challenged candidate that it is now impossible to tell mainstream Democrats from Michael (“society should treat Trump like a pedophile”) Moore.
