Breaking It Down Trumps Road to Defeat

It begins and ends at the exact same place His mouth.

Week after week there emerges a new story of a Trump verbal mishap, which he scrambles
to excuse and diminish, pointing back to Crooked Hillary. Whether its insulting the family
of a fallen soldier, inviting Russian hackers to commit espionage, or prompt a hit on
Clinton by egging on Second Amendment activists, it appears to be endless. And many
Republicans are embarrassed to watch. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 1 in 5
Republicans actually want Trump to back out of the race.

Whats fascinating to see is that people more than ever are taking great umbrage at
Trumps assaults at social issues rather than political ones.

Bloomberg Politics have polled which Trump comments have attracted the most negative
attention, asking pollsters if an action or statement bothered them a little, a lot, or not
at all. The one that bothered people the most, with 62% saying it bothered them a lot,
was Trumps infamous comments (and actions) about the physically disabled New York
Times reporter. This ranked higher than Trumps attacks of the Khan family (at 56% saying
it bothered them a lot) and him saying that he ALONE could solve all the countrys
problems (54% saying it bothered them a lot). Among the lowest ranked of issues that
bothered people a lot were the Trump University scandal (44%), the decision not to release
his tax returns (44%), and Trumps praise for Putin (42%).

The issue that plagued Clinton the most was the handling of her private email server, which
58% of people said bothered them a lot.

Whats fascinating here is that we, as American people, have put bigger emphasis on social
issues more than we ever have. Trumps verbal attack on one individual has hurt his image
more than any political scandal has. Its even outweighed Clintons email scandal, which
was a lie to the American people, and potentially now the Clinton Foundation, which would
be a clear example of white-collar crime. BUT, this isnt a bad thing, its just interesting to
see how our views and values and expectations have changed over time as voters.
Especially when considering what past presidents have gotten away with in areas that we
are particularly tough on candidates like Trump.

As an example I looked up the most sexist and racist (and just downright most offensive)
Presidents of all time, and heres just some that stood out:
Thomas Jefferson saw no reason to educate women as their roles in the kitchen
and in the house required little brain power, raped a girl who was the product of his
dads relations with one of his slaves, and even said that if women got involved in
politics it would lead to a deprivation of morals. (I know some of you out there
may argue this was a different time, so I started with Jefferson but aimed to find
more contemporary Presidents to use as examples as well)
 Richard Nixon was a well known anti-feminist who advised women to not be too
strong or too intelligent so as to not make their husband look like a wimp, even
giving Hillary Clinton this advice back in the day.
Bill Clinton is best known for his relations with White House intern, Monica
Lewinsky. However, there were multiple other reports of his sexual harassment in
the workplace that were buried (He also signed the Defense of Marriage Act, and
Dont Ask Dont Tell into law, which were both major assaults on the LGBTQ
community. The Defense of Marriage Act maintained by law that marriage was
between a MAN and WOMAN and Dont Ask Dont Tell was established in the
military to prevent discrimination amongst the troops by requiring that people did
not speak of their sexual orientation.)
George H.W. Bush, once told a joke to Bill Clinton, of all people, about the ugliest
woman he had ever seen and would never screw about a pro-choice activist. He
campaigned AGAINST the Civil Rights bill of 1964, saying it violated constitutional
rights (which actually makes no sense considering it gave rights to minority
groups), and there were no (I repeat, NO) women on his staff in office, and according
to reporters at the time, any woman in the Bush family that ever pursued a career.
George G.W Bush Bush junior was no better than his father in terms of assaults on
civil rights. He signed into law the No Child Left Behind Act of 2003, which hurt
minority kids by standardizing the education system with things like curriculum
and examinations, which were unfit for many schools moving at a different pace and
because of this, it drove up the dropout rate. The Federal Emergency Management
Agency also totally failed after the 2005 Hurricane Katrina, where government
officials were so painfully slow to respond that it left black families stranded and
fighting for their lives.
Dwight D. Eisenhower refused to endorse, and was forced to implement Brown vs.
Board of Education (the court case that de-segregated public schools across the
nation). He actually considered the decision to be repugnant and said plainly to
the Justice who made the decision, Earl Warren, that he understood why White
southerners wouldnt want their sweet little girls to sit next to some big black
buck in school.
FDR was well known for his decision in 1942 to send hundreds of thousands of
Japanese Americans to work camps (or internment camps) because of the fear,
stigma, and well racism that followed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. His
policies in his New Deal (his big piece of legislation as President) made some attacks
on minority communities as well, such as the coding of black neighborhoods as unfit
for new mortgages.
Ronald Reagan is the President that began the infamous War on Drugs, which
promoted the targeting of minorities for alleged circulating of drugs in the country.
He also signed into law minimum sentencing, as part of the tightening up of the
criminal justice system. This required a minimum term set for a crime, which led to
much harsher sentencing since often times people (mostly minorities) would be
stuck with incredibly harsh sentences for potentially minor offenses and there was
no way around it. The median income of black families declined by 5.2% while he
was in office.
 JFK wasnt the most overt racist, but he certainly wasnt a black activist by any
means. He actually barred Sammy Davis Jr., an entertainer at the time, from coming
to any white house events as he was married to May Britt, a white actress. He was so
opposed to their interracial marriage that when the couple ended up showing up to
a gala because they wound up back on the guest list due to a snafu, he told
photographers to take no photos of them.
Lyndon B. Johnson had to be, by far, the most outrageous President of all time.
Whenever anyone brought up Kennedys affairs around him, he made a point to
loudly declare that he had been with more women by accident than Kennedy ever
had on purpose, as if its a competition. He would taunt animal rights activists by
lifting his pet beagle by the ears for all to see. And perhaps amongst the worst, and
most offensive, was that he referred to the Civil Rights Act of 1957 as the n*****
bill. He once said to a part-time chauffeur of his, Robert Parker, As long as you are
black, and youre gonna be black till the day you die, no ones gonna call you by your
goddamn name. So no matter what you are called, n*****, you just let it roll off your
back like water, and youll make it. Just pretend youre a goddamn piece of
furniture.

I know its actually pretty shocking

But then, when I looked at the ranking of the most well liked presidents of all time (highest
favorability ratings) heres what I found
Nixon ranked #8 most well liked
Reagan ranked #7
LBJ ranked #6
Bill Clinton ranked #5
George HW ranked #4
FDR ranked #3
Eisenhower ranked #2
And JFK ranked #1

And among the American Political Science Association, all of those above mentioned were
ranked in the top 12 Top Presidents of All Time. The only outlier was HW Bush at #17, and
he was STILL one place higher than Obama.

Oh, and speaking of Obama, he has even had slip-ups of his own, like back in 2009
comparing his bowling game to something like the Special Olympics. This got him in quite
a bit of trouble.

The point of all of this is that it is interesting to see how we, as voters, have placed such a
high emphasis on these social issues in this election, though we have seen, that throughout
history we have elected in some pretty shifty leaders, and LOVED them. This is neither
good nor bad, and I cannot say what people SHOULD be focusing on as voters, its just a
pattern I have observed about our judgments as voters. And yes, the argument that times,
they have a-changed, is completely and utterly true. We have advanced so far in civil rights
movements in this country that we expect and demand more out of political leaders than
ever before in matters of political correctness. I believe these issues matter and I believe
the way in which our leaders behave in terms of social issues tells a lot about them as
leaders, and as people. However, I thought it was important to point out this food for
thought: throughout history we have made judgments on our Presidents, even though
some have had some pretty significant faults in terms of beliefs on social issues. Does this
make us hypocrites for not scrutinizing them like we do now? Were those issues not as
important to us? Should we ease up now? Or, should we re-evaluate past Presidents? Or
maybe these Presidents were SO good we gave them wiggle room to mess up in other
areas?

I think it is important and fair that we have held Trump to a standard where he cannot
abuse individual rights and freedoms. I think we must continue to do so. However, I believe
it is also fair to say that we must equally scrutinize political issues as well, which should
have equal weight. I think we have to be critical of our political leaders in all realms and we
must be steadfast in our demands to expect more. And, if they threaten any individuals
rights, they should not be rewarded and lauded in our history books.

Broken DownTrumps Road to Defeat