On Monday, sensing a political advantage after Donald Trump decided it was a wonderful idea to smear a Gold Star family, sneered at Republicans for failing to sufficiently disown Donald Trump. Senate Minority leader Harry Reid, one of the scummiest politicians on the planet, targeted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, stating:
Senator McConnell and Speaker Ryan approvingly spoke at Donald Trump’s convention, endorsed Donald Trump for president and believe he is mentally fit to sit in the Oval Office. Occasional statements that do nothing to repudiate Donald Trump’s words and actions are spineless. Anything short of revoking their endorsements is cowardice. This shouldn’t be hard. Donald Trump is a sexist and racist man who insults Gold Star parents, stokes fear of Muslims and sows hatred of Latinos. He should not be president and Republican leaders have a moral responsibility to say so.
Leftist Greg Sargent of The Washington Post penned a piece making a similar argument: “As some Republicans are already remarking, Trump’s battle with the Khan family makes it harder and harder to avoid acknowledging the possibility that we really have no idea how low Trump will sink.”
This is true.
There is one problem, however: Democrats don’t get to preen about the moral shortcomings of Donald Trump and Republican cowardice for supporting him so long as they cheer wildly for Hillary Clinton.
Here are three reasons why:
1. Hillary Is Worse Than Trump. Over the weekend, one major political candidate earned a four-Pinocchio rating from The Washington Post. That same candidate slurred Gold Star families as liars. That candidate was Hillary Clinton, who appeared on national television to explain that FBI Director James Comey had fully cleared her – he had even said she was honest! This, of course, was false. Then Hillary went on to claim that Benghazi Gold Star families must have misremembered her comments to them about a YouTube video being responsible for their children’s deaths. Hillary can complain all she wants about Trump’s connections with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, but she’s the one who handed him a reset button, then cut a nuclear deal that allowed the Russians into our uranium mines. For every Trump sin, there’s one just as bad in Hillary’s closet – and usually worse, since she was a government actor at the time.
2. Trump Is Our Black Swan. You Guys Wanted Hillary. Donald Trump, as everybody knows, was a black swan, once-in-a-century aberration. Republicans never expected him to do well, let alone win the nomination. As soon as it became clear that Trump would have a serious shot at the nomination, many Republicans announced they would never back him. Today, many Republicans who will back him do so out of the simple calculus that he’s superior to Hillary, not because they like him. The same is not true for Hillary Clinton. Not only do Democrats want Hillary to be president, the Democratic National Committee worked arduously to deny Bernie Sanders the nomination. The media have played fast and loose with Hillary, denying her evils and pushing her all the way to her “historic” nomination. Before you start gloating about Republican moral failures, take a look in the mirror: you begged for Hillary. Most Republicans tried to stop Trump.
3. You Guys Are Still Backing Hillary. There are many Republicans who won’t vote for Trump (including me). Even the ones who will are out condemning Trump today. Where, exactly, are the Democrats condemning Hillary’s corruption? Where is the #NeverHillary movement from the left? Why do leftists get to claim moral superiority for ardently supporting a worse candidate? In a normal world, they wouldn’t. But they can, because the media have been propping up a cackling, corrupt old crone for two decades. And they won’t stop now.
So no, Democrats have no moral superiority for backing Hillary Clinton. They just have, as always, their own perceived and unearned moral superiority.
