Trump defended his man this way: “You know, people are chopping off heads in the Middle East.”
Yes, because Lewandowski refrained from decapitating Fields, he’s to be lauded for his yuuuuuuge restraint. This is the standard that Trump staffers are held to, which is to say no standard at all. What about Lewandowski’s claim that he never touched Fields, which was refuted by footage released by the Jupiter Police Department? He lied to the public. Trump doesn’t seem to care.
Believe it or not, the same campaign that regularly threatens opponents and traffics in violent rhetoric about immigrants is being run by a mendacious hooligan. The tone, of course, is being set at the top. Trump himself quickly suggested that maybe Fields had faked the bruises on her arm. Don’t act so shocked. For the man who gipped his construction workers, mocked John McCain’s former POW status, launched a heinous attack on the appearance of Ted Cruz’s wife, and generally galumphs about behaving like an uninvited drunken uncle, this was just another day.
This boorish attitude has become standard operating procedure among Trump’s collection of associates and henchmen — his squad.
Take Roger Stone. Stone previously lobbied for Trump’s casinos and advised the billionaire’s campaign last year before the two had a falling out. He’s a self-described Republican hit man who rose from the dust of Richard Nixon’s dirty tricks. His admiration for the ex-president was so great that he got a tattoo of Nixon’s face on his back. An admitted “libertine,” Stone is considered radioactive in most Republican circles.
Then there’s David Pecker. Pecker is the CEO of the tabloid rag National Enquirer, which caters to public demand for garbage news about boring celebrities. The Enquirer’s first presidential endorsement was made earlier this month in support of noted boring celebrity Donald Trump. And while Pecker’s headlines have leered at Ted Cruz’s multiple affairs and Jeb Bush’s cocaine habit, they’ve taken a hands-off policy with Trump. The reason? Trump and Pecker have been close friends for years.
Given the bar that Lewandowski, Stone, Pecker, Trump, and others have set, is it any surprise that Dan Scavino, a “longtime Trump confidante” and head of social media for his campaign, tweeted out a vicious and baseless video implying CNN contributor Amanda Carpenter had an affair with Ted Cruz? Or that spokeswoman Katrina Pierson has amassed a veritable exhibit of appalling statements? Even newcomers to Trump’s campaign inevitably end up hanging their souls on a hook by the door.
Political campaigns have always been dirty, but they’ve also been governed by certain niceties, such as — just pulling one out of a hat here — “don’t bruise a woman’s arm and then lie about it.” In contrast, Trump’s squad practically flouts its amorality.
You don’t have to chuck out the whiskey bottle and embrace puritanism to understand why presidential candidates and their staffers should have a certain degree of decorum. “Tis substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government,” George Washington said in his Farewell Address. Yet today, the leading Republican and Democratic candidates for president are about the least virtuous and moral people you’ll find even in politics.
What does that say about us?
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