The Republican Crackup
It is universally acknowledged, however, that this is not a normal election. One of Trump’s talents is the destruction and humiliation of his opponents, as the Republican candidates who have dropped out one after another can testify.
.. In 2013, he warned the Conservative Political Action Conference:
As Republicans, if you think you are going to change very substantially for the worse Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security in any substantial way, and at the same time you think you are going to win elections, it just really is not going to happen.
.. Elsewhere, Moore’s dissection of the Trump phenomenon was even more trenchant:
We should not demand to see the long-form certificate for Mr. Trump’s second birth. We should, though, ask about his personal character and fitness for office. His personal morality is clear, not because of tabloid exposés but because of his own boasts.
Moore went on. Voters should
count the cost of following Donald Trump. To do so would mean that we’ve decided to join the other side of the culture war, that image and celebrity and money and power and social Darwinist “winning” trump the conservation of moral principles and a just society. We ought to listen, to get past the boisterous confidence and the television lights and the waving arms and hear just whose speech we’re applauding.