The Patriot Post® · Comey Tees Up Dems' 2018 'Morality' Play
In the now-infamous ABC News interview promoting his new book, disgraced former FBI Director James Comey pontificated on Donald Trump. The interviewer was George Stephanopoulos, former White House communications director for Bill Clinton, and he asked Comey, “You write that President Trump is ‘unethical,’ ‘untethered to the truth.’ Is Donald Trump unfit to be president?” Comey answered, “Yes, but not in the way I often hear people talk about it. I don’t buy the stuff about him being mentally incompetent, or early stages of dementia. He strikes me as a person of above-average intelligence, who’s tracking conversations and knows what’s going on. I don’t think he’s medically unfit to be president. I think he’s morally unfit to be president.”
And there it is, the foundation Democrats and the Left are seeking to build as the core of their political platform for the 2018 midterms: “Trump is not fit for office because of his lack of morality.” The plan appears to be using this not as a “get the vote out” message to a Democrat base that is already chomping at the bit to hit back at Trump, but it is instead designed to discourage conservatives from supporting Republican candidates. The mainstream media’s drum-banging on Trump’s lack of moral character has been especially aimed at conservative evangelicals. The question posed: “How can you willingly give your support to such an immoral man and still claim to be committed to promoting morality? Isn’t that hypocritical?”
It may prove to be an effective campaign tactic; time will tell. However, it first presumes that Trump’s lack of high moral character was an unknown issue, when the fact is it has been well known since long before he decided to run for office. Second, it assumes that conservative evangelical voters are essentially cultish followers of personality rather than focused on the issues. Conservatives in general tend to be more issue-driven than emotionally driven in their politics, and evangelicals are no exception. In fact, many evangelicals who did vote for Trump made the decision by weighing the options between two heavily flawed and morally compromised candidates, looked at where they stood on the important issues, and chose accordingly.
Finally, Democrats and the Left have been engaged in this anti-Trump #Resistance ever since he won the election. Comey’s assertion that Trump is “morally unfit for office” is yet another salvo from anti-Trumpers in their ongoing fight to get him removed from office. But the Democrats have a problem. What is it that Democrats are offering the American people, other than more anti-Trump vitriol? So far, they have come out against the obviously beneficial Republican tax cuts, against securing America’s border, against legislation on DACA, against the Rule of Law (see California declaring itself a sanctuary haven for illegal aliens), and against Americans’ Second Amendment rights. Instead, Democrats and their cohorts in the mainstream media have doubled down on riding the anti-Trump train, projecting that it will carry them on a blue wave back into congressional power. Will it work? They hope so, but of course if it doesn’t they can always blame the Russians.