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Too Far

October 8th, 2016

Oddly, the recording of Trump bragging about his predatory habits with women is probably the one thing that will bring him down and completely shatter any chance he ever had at winning the election.

I say “oddly” because, in the context of all we know about this man, this tape is hardly even surprising. We already knew this about him. And we knew so much more that was similarly horribly, much of it out of his own mouth, and yet none of that hurt him like this will.

We knew that he was a racist, from the first moment he opened his mouth. We knew that he was perfectly comfortable making scapegoats, appealing to fear, anger, and hatred. We knew that he was a bad businessman and a cheat; we heard countless stories about how he refused to pay people for work done. We knew that he went through multiple bankruptcies, in part due to his business failures, but also in part due to his shameless willingness to work the system to his personal advantage. We knew that he lost a billion dollars in one year and probably didn’t pay taxes for almost two decades. We knew that he was a pathological liar, more than anyone we had ever seen run for office. We knew that he has no self-control, no attention span, a contempt for following the rules, and a temperament to be truly feared. We knew that he was a serial adulterer, cheated on his wives. We knew that he was rude, crass, and lewd, objectifying women.

Everyone knew all of this about him, and yet more than 40% of the people seemed willing to accept this and vote for him to be president of the United States of America. It came to the point where we believed that there was literally no line that he could cross—as Trump himself put it, he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in broad daylight and he wouldn’t lose support.

There does appear to be a line, however, and Trump strode brassly over it. Actively stating—no, bragging—about sexually assaulting women, about attempting to rape a married woman, about how his fame made it possible for him to do this, using graphic language to state his gross intent to continue doing so—it is hard to tell if this is the last straw or simply unacceptable on its own, seeing as how we are drowning in straw.

Nor did he make more than a half-hearted attempt to clean up after himself; what the media generously called an “apology” was in fact a feeble attempt to blow it off, claiming it was “private banter,” and then accusing the other candidate’s husband of being worse.

At no other time have I felt as confident in pronouncing Trump’s campaign dead.

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  1. Matthew
    October 8th, 2016 at 23:37 | #1

    I have been missing your eloquent writing. Please blog more.

  2. Luis
    October 9th, 2016 at 14:50 | #2

    Matthew: Thanks, but I have moved a lot of my commentary to Facebook, in particular to this media page I run:

    http://facebook.com/shouldbeobvious

    I may return in time, but that’s where I’m at at the moment.

  3. Troy
    November 11th, 2016 at 11:30 | #3

    Came across this quote just now:

    “A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It’s where the rich use public transportation.”

  4. Troy
    November 13th, 2016 at 04:57 | #4

    http://www.athome.co.jp/chintai/6955366996/?DOWN=4&BKLISTID=004LPC&sref=list_map

    Crazy that rents are flat if not down in Tokyo after 20 years, compared to the nasty rent inflation in California since 1995 (West LA up from $800 to $2500, Bay area worse)

    earliest departure date for me is early 2020, but it’s contingent on family matters.

    not being able to replace Scalia with a non lizardperson means this place is basically toast for the remainder of my lifetime, regardless of what other damage the GOP does these next 2-4 years.

    I floated off to Japan in 1992 just before Clinton was elected, things sucked then, sorta, before tech came and revived everything, thrice (internet, social media, mobile).

    Not sure quality of life in Tokyo is superior to some quiet spot in California for me, though, but staying comes at the risk of things getting bad, fiscally and socially, as we slide into a civil cold war.

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