By John Avlon
Mark down the date: October 7, 2016, is when Donald Trump lost the presidency.
I’m usually reluctant to play the pundit-prediction game but Independent and Republican women aren’t going to bounce back from this one. Not when the GOP nominee is caught on tape talking about hitting on a married woman “with big phony tits” “like a bitch” and how part of his M.O. is “grabbing pussy” because “when you’re a star” “you can do anything.”
This entire campaign has been an exercise of the electorate being slowly simmered in a pot of boiling water, losing our sense of outrage amid a steady of onslaught insults and lies. But sex and cruelty resonates in a way that financial scandals or demagoguery just don’t.
Character is what you do when nobody’s looking. And this video captures Trump in the middle of day, sober, a few months after being married, talking with a man he barely knows, bragging about sexual assault, while wearing a microphone.
This is, apparently, the real Donald Trump. So much for any claims to having “great judgment” and “the best temperament.” So much for indignant campaign spin, like the Baghdad Bob-esque denial issued from Trump Tower this week after allegations of sexism emerged from The Apprentice set: “These outlandish, unsubstantiated, and totally false claims fabricated by publicity hungry, opportunistic, disgruntled former employees, have no merit whatsoever.” Add to that the now-classic insincerity of “nobody respects women more than I do.”
Conservative supporters have been played for fools by Con Man Donald. Shouting back “Benghazi!” isn’t going to help. You can’t deflect; you have to deal with the reality of this situation. Even Mike Pence won’t be able to shake his head over this one to make it go away. Trump’s own VP nominee will have to distance himself from this particular disgrace because it cuts against his political brand and undercuts his 2020 ambitions.
For Republicans, this is a time to head to the lifeboats. The GOP has been preparing plans to run away from the top of the ticket in an attempt to save the senate and now it’s too late to replace their nominee. He is on the ballot. The modest gains Trump had made in September have been definitively dashed. The CNN/ORC poll issued after his disastrous first debate showed Trump trailing by 14 points among women, 9 points by independents and 27 points by moderates. These numbers are all going to nosedive further, and though I suspect Donald Trump will slightly outperform the polls on election day, all the self-inflicted wounds will prove too much to build a winning coalition beyond his populist base. On the most basic level of political math, Trump is losing support in the final stretch instead of winning new converts. This does not end well.
For all the #NeverTrump supporters who have been softening over the past few weeks, rationalizing why they must fall into line behind someone they know is irresponsible, and all the reluctant Republicans who feel that they have no political choice but to support their party’s nominee, remember what John F. Kennedy once said: “sometimes party loyalty asks too much.”
On Friday night, Utah Congressman Jason Chaffetz, who is leading the ongoing Hillary Clinton investigation/witch hunt in the House, revoked his endorsement of Trump along with his home state Governor and Utah Senator Mike Lee. Former Utah Governor and former presidential candidate Jon Huntsman, who had inexplicably endorsed The Donald, called on Trump to step down. Independent conservative presidential candidate Evan McMullen just had a good night as an anti-Trump and anti-Hillary alternative.
Now, Republicans who ought to know better, including Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Senator John McCain will need to move beyond their reluctant endorsements and initial denunciations to actually revoke their support. This doesn’t mean endorsing Hillary Clinton, but it does mean taking responsibility for fixing what has gone so wrong for the Party of Lincoln that it fell for Con Man Donald.
This is the most devastating October surprise in history—with a far more visceral impact than Nixon’s secret ’68 negotiations with the Viet Cong, Iran’s final refusal to release the hostages in 1980, George W. Bush’s long-lost D.U.I., Hurricane Sandy or Mitt Romney’s 47% comments. The fact that it occurs against the first female presidential nominee just makes the contrast more politically lethal. The Clintons have always benefitted from enemies who ultimately over-reach and destroy themselves.
Courtesy of The Daily Beast
Ends
John Avlon , I like your political expertise on cnn. I am pretty confident that your prediction is going to be right . The con man who was created by Republican Party based on his hatred and lies against president Obama has just lost his presidency . Mr Trump’s rise in American politics was due to birther movement he spearheaded. Republican Party went on with this tirade without any denunciation from republican leadership and conservative/ right wing of the party . Mr Trump is a darling of racist political pundits like Sean Hannity , Rush Limbaugh and many talking heads with extreme views on immigration and minorities. In coming weeks , we shouldn’t be suprised to hear and see more vulgar comments and videos from Trump.
If we compare mr Trump’s vulgarity with our little Dictator Jammeh, we will find out that Yaya Jammeh of The Gambia said worse things about The Gambian people than Mr Trump’s vitriol against immigrants , Muslims , minorities and women. But in The Gambia where majority of our political leaderships , religious leaders and community leaders stayed mute about jammeh’s vitriol against majority of citizens including his tribal vitriol against Mandinkas and his targeting of Foni people during his witch hunting exercise. Gambia becomes nation of reluctant religious truth tellers to president Jammeh and majority of our political leaders including those in APRC has no moral values. Majority of APRC National Assembly members become political prostitutes who will do and say anything to appease the dear leader. It is only in the west where you see the Vice Presidential nominee distance himself from despicable remarks of his running mate , the presidential candidate. This is exactly what Governor Pence , mr Trump running mate has been doing since he was selected by Mr Trump as his Vice Presidential candidate. In the case of The Gambia’s Vice President Isatou Njie saidy , she has never distance herself from Dictator jammeh’s despicable comments he made over the course of his dictatorial rule. Vice President Njie Saiidy is the chief political strategist who will lie to the entire world to save the face of her demoralizing leader. She has become spining Doctor and second greatest political liar in the course of our country’s history. Vice President Njie saidy first started her lying career in year 2000 student demonstrations when she famously lied that students demonstrators had the guns and they were shooters of their fellow demonstrators. Such a lie was passed on by the Gambians without any consequences from our political leaders and religious leaders. While it is comforting to see Vice President send her children to USA , she failed to realize that parents of those deceased students will never have the opportunities to see their children grow and attend best colleges in USA.
The lesson of swift condemnations and denunciations across the political spectrum in the aftermath of many of mr Trump’s disrespectful remarks should be learned by Gambia’s opposition leaderships especially Pdois leadership and GDC leadership who are reluctant to condemn many of Dictstor jammeh’s despicable remarks against individuals , groups and tribes. It is part of moral leadership values to condemn and denounce disrespectful comments. Leadership is about showing moral values and being a good role model for the country and her young people. It is time for our leaders to emulate those leaders who denounced and condemned despicable comments.
Well said and well contrasted Max, It’s very sad and demoralising for our nation that Yahya Jammeh makes such kind iresponsble dirty hateful speeches and remarks towards a particular group in the open and in public and yet, shamelessly he’s clapped for and cheered up by his aprc supporters, women in particular and those shameless immoral religious leaders who cannot distance themselves from Yahya. Anytime time Yahya opens his mouth, he spews out hate, disunity, threatening Gambians, and yet some Gambians still believe Yahya is a “great leader?” What a self destruction.
Max…
How can Donald Trump be the “con man that was created by the Republican Party”, when the elites and power movers of the Republican Party did everything possible to stop him..?
Or are you all alluding to a conspiration theory by the establishment to get Hillary Clinton into the White House, via Donald Trump .?
If so, you won’t be the first one to have such suspicion about Donald Trump. Several serious political observers have expressed the view that the whole Donald Trump show is a class act and charade, designed to get Hillary Clinton into office, by weakening the Republican Party.
Some of the pointers provided to back up this claim includes the fact that Donald Trump is not a consistent Republican and has registered, and indeed voted in the past, as a Democrat. He is also a known friend of the Clintons and has donated generously to their foundation.
Twitter posts praising both Mr Bill Clinton and daughter Chelsea, @realDonaldTrump (from Mr Trump), as recent as 2012, has been unearthed by Trump sceptics..And there are many more reasons for this fantastic conspiration theory…
Whatever the truth, American politics and its decadence has perhaps, never been exposed before, as the current contest for the White House has done. And whilst the world watches that, once great nation, slide into the bottomless pit of immoral and gutter politics, it awaits, with trepidation, the outcome of the elections that may plunge the entire world into the unknown.
May Allah (swt) save humanity from the arrogance of the arrogant..
Bax , what I mean by Republican Party created Donald trump is that they gave him support and refused to denounce him when he started the birther movement. It was the birther movement that led to his fame and rise in American politics . The movement was based on hate , lies and pure racist tactics. I do not believe that mr trump presidential aspirations is based on conspiracy theories. What happened was that Republican Party and his fellow contestants never challenged him on issues that are important to American people. Mr trump was also not challenged by the media which should have hold him accountable for some of the things he said or have done in the past . Basically he was given free publicity and he also used the opportunity to his advantage. It is now the media has turned tide on him and they are exposing him. As for conspiracy theories , I do not believe in them but there is some truth/ facts about the relationship between clintons and Trumps. They were good friends at the many levels including family .. Chelsea and Invanka trump are also friends . In fact mr trump indicated that it was because of respect for Chelsea that he did not attack Hillary during last debate . You are also right that mr trump has never been a consistent republican because he support both parties in the past. This is why some conservatives and establishment republicans leaders do not trust him and it is the same reason conspiracy theories do not trust his aspirations for presidency . I believe Hilary will win with landslide including popular votes and electoral votes . Mr Trump is the most dishonest politician in recent time . His behavior can be compared to Sam Sarr of pdois who is also a con man. Mr Sarr is Jammeh supporter because of his personal relations with the dictator. There is high correlation that the same relationship exist between Halifa Sallah and Yaya Jammeh . Based on their evidential political strategy and newspaper business, this Make pdois an agent of military dictatorship.,
I have to smile to myself when I got to the end of your comment.
You can’t resist a swipe at your self declared “enemies” and “spoilers”, can you..?.I wont go down that road for now.
May be another time. Right now, we must allow the alliance talks to go on without hindrance. Time will eventually indict the real enablers of Yaya Jammeh.
Max, the political astuteness of your self declared “enemy” will now become evident.
The opposition political parties have agreed to a convention to select a single presidential candidate.
kamalo , Halifa sallah is not my enemy as you suggested . I do not have any personal hatred for him. I just know he is not pragmatic politician and his political conduct is not my favorite to say the least . I met the man when i was growing up , i attended his symposium and many other forum. He is not what i thought he was then. Therefore , i do not support him but i respect his political belief.
I want to correct the statement about the opposition political parties agreeing to a convention to select a presidential candidate.
What is missing in the statement is “as reported.”