I BARGAINED FOR SALVATION AND SHE GAVE ME A LETHAL DOSE
Republicans are notoriously hypocritical about sex. They say they want to stop abortions, but most of them refuse to support the most effective method of reducing abortions, which is effective contraception. They obsess over the sex lives of Bill and Hillary Clinton, but when one of their own (e.g. Newt Gingrich, Bill O’Reilly, Bristol Palin, Donald J. Trump) strays, they’ll either look the other way, or invoke the power of God’s redeeming love for members of the GOP (Grand Old Pussy-grabbers).
How convenient for Republicans that GOP Jesus is always willing to cut his chosen people some slack when it comes to sins of the flesh.
That’s why, when the Stormy Daniels story broke, I thought it would blow over quickly. In fact, I thought the whole episode might even enhance Trump’s reputation among the male members of his evangelical base, many of whom probably entertain fantasies of living the life Trump brags about. Sin now, repent later, and resume moralizing.
But as time has passed, it’s clear that the Trump camp has been thrown off balance by Daniels and her attorney. His propagandists are having trouble finding an effective way to attack her. They tried ignoring her, but she refused to go away. They can’t call her a liar, since it seems clear that she’s telling the truth about her affair with Trump. They can’t even figure out how to insult her, because she’s more or less shameless. As she says, “There's nothing that anyone can say that I haven't heard. So, they say, 'Hey, you're a whore ...' I'm like, 'That's 'successful whore' to you!'”
The more we learn about the $130,000 payoff, the worse it looks. Team Trump can’t even do a simple bribe correctly. And the non-disclosure agreement mentions “certain still images and/or text messages” from Donald Trump. I’ll leave the nature of those images to your imagination.
Now comes the news that Daniels has recorded an extensive interview with 60 MINUTES. Trump’s lawyers are trying to stop CBS from airing the interview, but given the extremely high bar the Supreme Court has set for prior restraint (immediate, irreparable harm to the nation), they don’t appear to have much leverage. It’s not illegal to embarrass the president.
I have written that Vladimir Putin was the only person Donald Trump refused to criticize. Who’d have guessed that the second member of that exclusive club would be a porn star?
We have a general idea of the nature of Putin’s leverage over Trump. At a minimum, Putin knows about the Trump family’s shady business practices with Russian oligarchs, and about the Trump campaign’s collaboration with Russian hackers to rig the 2016 election.
Stormy Daniels’ information is presumably of a more personal nature. Trump’s $130,000 bought him secrecy for a year and kept the scandal out of the news long enough for him to eke out a win in the Electoral College. You could say it was money well spent. But sooner or later, we’ll find out what Daniels knows, and we’ll see how the public reacts.
In related news, Billy Graham died last month at the age of 99. When I was a kid, Graham was by far the best-known protestant minister in the country. I used to watch his televised crusades back in the 1950s. He prayed with, and for, presidents from both parties, and was famous for insisting that his rallies be open to people of all races. At the end of his life, he was said to be blind and deaf. He may not have known that his son, Franklin Graham, was one of Donald J. Trump’s primary enablers.
When asked about Stormy Daniels, Franklin Graham publicly gave Trump “a mulligan” on his pre-presidential adultery. I don’t know who gave Graham the authority to issue mulligans, but leaving that aside, his rationale was that Trump hasn’t “sinned” since he’s been president. Graham seems to have a special version of the Bible in which the Ten Commandments are replaced with One Commandment (about sex) plus nine recommendations. That allows him to overlook (for example) Trump’s constant lying.
But let’s set those other “thou shalt nots” aside and just talk about adultery. Here’s a question for Trump’s evangelical apologists. What are the odds that he cheated on Melania only with Stormy Daniels? Would evidence of additional adulterous affairs cause you to rethink your support for the Adulterer in Chief?
Because there’s already evidence of a second affair, with the 1998 Playmate of the Year, Karen McDougal, shortly after Melania gave birth to Barron. How many more adulterous affairs will it take before you say “enough”?
My guess is that most evangelicals will keep giving Trump mulligans. In fact, Robert Jeffress, pastor of the famous “First Baptist Church of Dallas” megachurch, has already issued a universal pre-emptive mulligan for every sin in the book. “I’m his friend,” Jeffress said. “I will never walk away.”
Stay classy, evangelicals.