An editorial piece today in The Washington Post by Max Boot is worth the read. It is entitled “Opinions | Trump may be running the sleaziest presidential campaign ever.” A link is below. Here are few select paragraphs, but please read the entire piece.
“I’m old enough to remember when the Republican Party was known as the “party of ideas.” That was in the 1980s. Since then it has become the party of pseudo-scandals…
Since then, the Republican Party, in cahoots with media partners such as Fox ‘News’ and Rush Limbaugh, has manufactured one pseudo-scandal after another: Vince Foster’s suicide, Whitewater, Mena airport, John Kerry’s Swift Boat service, Barack Obama’s birth certificate, the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton’s emails, among others.
The process has been turbocharged under President Trump, who is even more ruthless and unscrupulous than (Newt) Gingrich. The former reality-TV star won the 2016 election by defaming a former secretary of state and first lady as “Crooked Hillary” and demanding that she be locked up for unspecified offenses. Now he is trying to run the same playbook on Joe Biden.
Trump got himself impeached by trying to blackmail Ukrainian officials into accusing Biden and his son Hunter of wrongdoing. That didn’t stop Trump’s attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, from working with shady Ukrainian contacts — including a lawmaker described as a Russian agent by Trump’s own Treasury Department — to produce dirt on Biden. Until recently, this had resulted in a few audiotapes of interest only to One America News Network. Our Democracy in Peril: A series on the damage Trump has caused — and the danger he would pose in a second term
Then Giuliani turned over to the New York Post the supposed contents of a laptop supposedly belonging to Hunter. The alleged emails have never been authenticated, and the New York Times revealed that the New York Post’s own journalists had so little faith in the story that the lead reporter refused to put his name on an article he had written. The Washington Post reported that Trump’s own national security adviser told him that ‘any information Giuliani brought back from Ukraine should be considered contaminated by Russia,’ and more than 50 former intelligence officers warned that the emails have ‘all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.'”
The party of “pseudo-scandals.” The “sleaziest” campaign. It should be noted Republican pollster Frank Lunz has noted these attacks on Hunter Biden are not the way to go. Lunz said Trump is so far behind Biden, people just do not care.
I care. Calling anything the president does as “sleazy” or “sleaziest” is not a bridge too far. The president has operated in this manner well before his presidency and that is without diving into his alleged sexual misconduct from over twenty women. Some may be surprised that Trump has operated in corrupt, deceitful and sleazy manner as president, but I am not. On occasion, he may go lower than I think he is capable of, but to say I am surprised is the wrong reaction.
We deserve a truthful, decent, empathetic and even-tempered president. I would use none of those attributes to define the incumbent And, that makes me sad.
musingsofanoldfart 
Apparently some portion of this country — and I won’t say ‘republicans’, for there are some republicans who have distanced themselves from the madness — are okay with the lies, the unfounded conspiracy theories, and more. This is what I find stunning, and not in any good way. It is not that Trump is grasping at straws and lying through his teeth, but that approximately 42% of the adults in this nations think it’s okay. If any other president in our history had acted in such a manner, he would have been given the boot, but apparently the bar has been lowered to accommodate one person, a person with low intellect and and a high disregard for the lives of others.
Jill, agreed. Boot’s reference to the word “sleaziest” is a very unflattering term, but apt. I think a few evangelicals of the 78% supporting him may not care for that term to describe the campaign’s actions. Keith
In my book, ‘sleazy’ is the very definition of Donald Trump, so it goes without saying that ‘sleaziest’ fits his administration to a ‘T’. Any ‘man’ who accosts teenage girls in their dressing room, who speaks of having sex with his own daughter … that defines sleazy.
No argument here.
Well said, Keith, and I agree with Jill’s comment above. I think that the fact that around 40% of voters approve and support the sleazeball-in-chief is the most appalling thing about this period in history. I’m quite confident that Joe Biden will win this election, but I don’t envy the job he’ll have cleaning up after the most corrupt president in your history. Trump makes Nixon look like a choir boy. Both Republicans… my, my!
Agreed on all counts. Maybe the word “sleaziest” might land a punch to shake up a few. Keith
Note to Readers: What does Max Boot have in common with George Will, Ross Douthat, David Brooks, Michael Gerson, and Eric Erickson? They are all long time conservative voices whose opinions mattered to the Republican Party AND do not want Donald Trump reelected.
Very true Keith, many “conservatives” have been appalled by the current POTUS, which may just mean their underlying ideology is only and solely reactionary. And isn’t that knee-jerk-ism, practiced by the left, but most often by the right, has been a long time hobble of our land of the free and the home of the brave.
Trump needs to go, and I hope that’s made so, but the boys you mentioned above played Frankenstein to the pedigree that leads to the grifter from Queens.
Regards,
Thanks. Knee-jerkism is a great term and should not be a substitute for governance and understanding. One of the things I have grown weary of is news and pseudo news reporting every sniffle, every poor word choice, every not mentioning a slighted group, etc. as if it is the major news of the day. By reporting every Trump failing, it made us inured to his larger failures when he was corrupt, bullying a critic, lying about something as he tried to fix it or just peeing on the rights of minorities and our constitution.
To your final point, Trump did not create divisiveness, but he has exploited it. Keith
Thank you Keith for keeping us abreast.
Another facet of Trump’s era is that whenever you think a new low has been reached, he slips under it.
Roger, it is sad game called “Trump Limbo.” How low can he go? Keith
Crawling and slithering through the dust, biting ankles I guess
Roger, the ankle of any person who criticized this snake of a person or did not genuflect enough would be bitten. Keith