Why Not?: Things That Are Not Normal

This is the sixth in a series of posts on the reasons I will not be voting to return the former president to the White House. My focus here is not to support his opponent but instead to explain why I believe that Donald Trump is manifestly unqualified for the role.

Things that are not normal:

Evangelical Christians who rail against sexual promiscuity and the decline of marriage supporting a guy who said (on tape):

"I did try and f*** her. She was married. I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping. … I moved on her like a b***, but I couldn’t get there and she was married. Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony t**s and everything... I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the p***y. You can do anything.” 

U.S. military veterans voting for a man who dodged military service with bone spurs and made unbelievably tone-deaf comments about honor & sacrifice:

• “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” (speaking of Aisne-Marne American Cemetery with WWI dead)
• “suckers” (referring to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood)
• "Trump, after a separate trip to France in 2017, tells [John] Kelly he wants no wounded veterans in a military parade he’s trying to have planned in his honor. Inspired by the Bastille Day parade, except for the section of the parade featuring wounded French veterans in wheelchairs, Trump tells Kelly, “Look, I don’t want any wounded guys in the parade.” “Those are the heroes,” Kelly said. “In our society, there’s only one group of people who are more heroic than they are – and they are buried over in Arlington.” “I don’t want them,” Trump said. “It doesn’t look good for me.”" (CNN reporting on John Kelly - former Trump chief of staff - statement)

Republican leaders who lived through the Cold War and the threat of the Soviet Union excusing the President of the United States when he stands next to the former KGB agent/leader of Russia and answers a question about Russian attempts to influence the 2016 election: 

"My people came to me. Dan Coats [Director of National Intelligence] came to me, and some others. They said they think it's Russia. I have President Putin. He just said it's not Russia. I will say this: I don't see any reason why it would be." 

In other words, I am willing to believe the demagogic leader of a country over U.S. intelligence services.

And this admiration & excusing for Putin continues - on October 15th, the former president was asked about reporting by Bob Woodward that he had spoken with Putin multiple times since leaving office. His reply is... revealing.

"Well, I don't comment on that, but I will tell you that, if I did, it's a smart thing. If I'm friendly with people, if I have a relationship with people, that's a good thing, not a bad thing, in terms of a country. He's got 2,000 nuclear weapons, and so do we. China has a lot less, but they'll catch us within five years. If I have a relationship, I don't talk about... No, I don't talk about that. I don't ever say it, but I can tell you what, Russia has never had a president that they respect so much."

On October 17th, Mr. Trump opined that...

“That doesn’t mean I don’t want to help him [President Zelensky of Ukraine], because I feel very badly for those people, but he should never have let that war start."

Reminder: the war was started by a full scale Russian invasion of Ukraine (following the annexation of Crimea 8 years earlier.)

Union workers backing Mr. Trump despite his complete disdain for their work and/or their livelihood:

“They get away with murder because they say, ‘Oh yes, we’re building cars.’ They don’t build cars. They take ’em out of a box, and they assemble ’em. We could have our child do it." (interview - Oct. 15, 2024)

“I know a lot about overtime. I hated to give overtime, I hated it. I’d get other people—I shouldn’t say this, but I’d get other people in. I wouldn’t pay." (rally - Sept. 29, 2024)

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Here's the deal - there is no limit to the number of these kind of statements and behaviors by the former president that clearly indicate his lack of fitness to serve again. In just the last week, he's managed to:

• talk about the size of a dead golf legend's genitalia during a rally
• “When he took the showers with other pros, they came out of there. They said, ‘Oh my God. That’s unbelievable.’”
• stop answering questions at a town hall and have his staff play songs off his Spotify playlist for over 35 minutes
• "Let's not do any more questions. Let's just listen to music. Who the hell wants to hear questions, right?"
• referred to his supporters as "fat pigs"
• Tell them, ‘Jill, get your fat husband off the couch, get that fat pig off the couch. Tell him to go and vote for Trump, he’s going to save our country. Get him up, Jill, slap him around, get him up!'”
• called himself "the father of IVF" in a Fox News town hall
• "I'm the father of IVF. We really are the party for IVF. We want fertilization, and it's all the way and the Democrats tried to attack us on it, and were out there on IVF, even more than them. So, we're totally in favor."
• suggested that Abraham Lincoln should have negotiated to keep the Civil War from happening
• “Lincoln was probably a great president although I’ve always said, why wasn’t that settled?”
• reframed the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol as a "day of love"... in addition to putting himself on the side of the rioters
• "There were no guns down there. We didn’t have guns. The others had guns, but we didn’t have guns. And when I say “we” these are people that walk down, this was a tiny percentage of the overall, which nobody sees and nobody shows. But that was a day of love from the standpoint of the millions, it’s like hundreds of thousands."

This is not normal... and you don't have to normalize it by voting for the former president.

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Important reminder: I am not attempting to defend the Biden administration or the Harris candidacy. I am simply pointing out that the obvious issues of cognitive decline and narcissism by Donald Trump do not deserve and will not receive my support.

The first post in this series focuses on tariff policy - at this point, Mr. Trump's belief that tariffs are a "magic wand" that can cure all sorts of problems - child care, grocery prices, bringing manufacturing jobs back to the U.S., etc. They're not.

The second post in this series focuses on immigration policy - the dehumanizing language, the abject lies, and the unbelievably foolish promises of mass deportation.

The third post in this series focuses on Mr. Trump's narcissism and potential cognitive decline.

The fourth post in this series focuses on the unbelievable record of lying by Mr. Trump.

The fifth post in this series focuses on the former president's support for those who brutally attacked police officers during the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.