I’m stumped.
For my entire life, since before I could even vote, I have repeatedly been told that what the Republican Party values most is character, integrity and wholesome family values. It was my understanding that morality was the bedrock of the Republican brand. Nothing, I thought, excited a Republican more than a good, clean educated Christian man married to a good, clean educated long-haired Christian woman except such a couple with cute young kids and a reputation for honesty.
It was my understanding that this is why Republicans chose to reject Bill Clinton in the form of electing George W. Bush over Al Gore. Clinton had been impeached after he was caught lying under oath about his affair with an intern and the nation, it was said, wanted a clean start with a good family values President. In retrospect, putting all of my problems with his policies aside, Bush was indeed the stereotype of who and what Republican’s claimed to value in a leader. His wife was a kind librarian. He had two cute kids. He had a reputation for honesty and decency. Doggone it, he fit the brand.
You know who else fits the brand? And I mean spot on.
President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and Dr. Jill Biden.
They entered the White House with impeccable integrity and are leaving the White House Friday with said integrity fully intact. They are honest, sincere, kind, decent, gentle, grounded, compassionate men and women of reliable moral character. They are above reproach. They avoid scandals or even rumors of scandals. They play by the rules. They are faithful to each other. Questions of their personal character, morality and fidelity simply do not exist.
For eight years, the personal and public integrity of our President and Vice President has been without spot or blemish. The threat of investigations or National Enquirer-type scandals has not loomed for a single day over them. It’s been a beautiful thing to watch and experience.
Barack and Michelle love each other and you know it. Barack and Joe love each other and you know it. They show us. They tell us. It’s obvious. They have romance. They have bromance. Daily, we hear quotes from poets and scholars. We see genuine smiles and sometimes tears. They are well-rounded.
And listen, I say all of this, without a single reference to their politics. I’m talking about who they are as people. The Obamas and the Bidens are good people. You know it. I know it. The world knows it.
Yet, for eight straight years, they were never treated as such by American conservatives. Instead, they were treated like they were no good, filthy, dirty, lying, cheating, stealing, corrupt, immoral bastards by the Republican Party. The truth is that they aren’t even very liberal. They are moderate Democrats. Most deep progressives and lifelong liberals have been frustrated with the White House for most of the past eight years, but again, you’d never know that, from the way conservatives have treated them.
On this past Monday, I started a college speaking tour. Many of the places I will be visiting have already been visited by Vice President Joe Biden on his speaking tour about the crisis of sexual assault on college campuses.
Do you know why he is not only allowed, but welcomed on campuses all over this country to talk about such a sensitive, but critical topic? It’s because we all know he is a man of integrity. In fact, only a man or woman of great integrity could go from college to college and do what Joe has done over this past year.
Donald Trump will never be able to do what Joe Biden has done.
When the Republican Party voted in Donald Trump, they discarded all illusions that they cared about personal ethics or morality. They tossed aside character and exchanged it, instead, for the candidate with the most Twitter followers. Donald Trump’s first wife said in a deposition that he “raped and brutally assaulted” her. She later retracted her statement and said that she didn’t want her comments understood in a legal sense.
Nearly 20 other women have come forward to claim that he sexually assaulted them.
Hell, the man was caught on tape saying that he grabs them “by the p—y.” He said that. Those are his words. When we learned that Russia might be seeking to blackmail him with evidence of sordid immorality, the public question was never whether or not Donald was capable of such things, but simply whether or not this accusation was true. We all know what he’s capable of.
Our nation will be forever impacted by having a President with such poor character. He has normalized sexual assault, bigotry, xenophobia, the mocking of the disabled, and so much else that takes decades to bat away. In one swoop, the worst human instincts have now taken up residence in the White House.
This much I know — the Republican Party, from this point forward, can never again claim that it values integrity, or decency, or morality. They had it for the past eight years and couldn’t find it in their hearts to acknowledge it and then chose who may very well be the most immoral presidential candidate in the history of candidates as their next president.