By Terry Manning
Lord, why didn’t Donald Trump remain a Democrat?
I do not say this because I want him to be a Democrat now that so many people think his re-election is inevitable. I still think he is a low-character lowlife, and I remain dumbfounded as to why he is a competitive candidate for either of the two major parties vying to put someone in the Oval Office.
No, I wonder why Trump didn’t stay a Democrat because maybe, just maybe, Democrats would’ve excised him years ago and spared the country much of the turmoil he’s subjected us to over the past eight years.
See, while Republicans will get in line behind their party standard bearers and march in lockstep to support them at the polls, Democrats tend to turn on each other at the drop of a hat. I started to say “eat their young,” but Joe Biden’s isn’t anyone’s idea of young, and he’s been sent shopping for ice floes.
It’s a darn shame a president who has accomplished as much as Biden has is being dismissed by his own party for the fatal misstep of getting old. As if his decades of experience in public office were a liability in helping him achieve the legislative victories he achieved.
But that’s what Democrats do. Ask John Kerry. Ask Al Franken. Ask Hillary Clinton.
In 2004, Kerry was a leading candidate for president when a group of veterans and former POWs decided to challenge his service record. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth appeared in a series of soft television ads questioning combat medals awarded to Kerry for his service in Vietnam.
Kerry released his service records and subsequent investigation found his medals were vetted appropriately, but it was too late to save his campaign. It’s hard to remember a time when the slightest whiff of controversy could disqualify a candidate, but that’s what happened to the Democrat Kerry.
Never mind that at the same time, presidential candidate George W. Bush was receiving similar scrutiny about his service record with the Texas Air National Guard. A CBS Report alleging Bush had not fulfilled his military obligations ended up costing longtime newsman Dan Rather his job when it was found he’d been fed forged documents. But the controversy didn’t affect Bush. He went on to beat Kerry in the general election.
The term “swiftboating” still is used to apply to unfair attacks against someone’s service record and patriotism.
Former Minnesota Sen. Al Franken was targeted in 2017 by a conservative radio talk show host who alleged he had groped her inappropriately, producing a photo of Franken pretending to touch her in 2006 as proof.
The former comedian apologized, but he fell as an early and high-profile conquest of the #MeToo movement. A political career that seemed destined for higher office disappeared in less than a month. Especially after other women shared times when he had shown questionable taste in comments and gestures around them.
I am not defending him against sexual misconduct, if, indeed, that is what happened, but an allegation of inappropriate contact that took place at least a decade earlier? Surely that couldn’t cost someone a valued political position? Franken admitted his lack of judgment and apologized.
Maybe if he’d denied everything, called the women unattractive, and claimed he was the target of a witch hunt, he might have been allowed to stay in office. We’ll never know.
What we do know is the woman who led the charge to get him out of office, and the woman who succeeded him, both think he should have been allowed a formal investigation and not been hounded into resignation.
And Hillary? At the same time she was facing scrutiny over her emails, she was being dragged by the Trump campaign and the National Enquirer over her age (67!) and physical ability to serve.
According to Politico, the Enquirer quoted sources saying, “The desperate and deteriorating 67-year-old won’t make it to the White House — because she’ll be dead in six months.” That was in October 2015. We know now the Enquirer publisher was printing all of this as a favor to Trump, but a seed had been planted.
A year later, GOP and Democrat radars pinged when the perceived favorite to win the 2016 presidential election fell ill at a 9/11 commemoration. Her campaign released a doctor’s statement that she simply had pneumonia and would recover fully, which she did.
But when people already are looking for a reason, anything will suffice.
How crazy is it the same kinds of accusations are being played out again in this cycle, and much more successfully?
I hold out hope enough of the general public will support whoever gets the Democrats’ nod to take on Trump, but the Democrats’ record of supporting their own is suspect.
Terry E. Manning is a Clemson graduate and worked for 20 years as a journalist. He can be reached at teemanning@gmail.com.
