Last week a tape surfaced from 2005 which features Trump making extremely sexist and sexual remarks towards women, and boasting about groping a married woman and wanting to have sex with her. Ugh. Ew. Bleugh. The November presidential election is coming up in the United States, as I’m sure everyone knows, and this tape certainly does Trump and his campaign no favours in their presidential bid. It seems that the notoriously loose-mouthed businessman has shot himself in the foot yet again as these past statements come back to haunt him, and another round of Republican senators and congressmen have deserted him.
If Trump was a typical politician, this tape would have buried his presidential chances in the ground. Dead on arrival. Do not resuscitate. But Trump has already proven so many times over the last year that he is not an ordinary politician. His racist comments about Hispanic, particularly Mexican, immigrants didn’t sink him during the primaries. His insult toward Senator John McCain and the war veterans he represents, calling him a “loser” for being captured as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, didn’t kill his chances. Even when he called for preventing immigration of Muslims in the aftermath of the Nice bombings, and suggested that the Muslim mother of an American soldier that died in Iraq didn’t speak because “she wasn’t allowed to”, his poll numbers have not tanked. It truly seems as if Trump is bulletproof.
However, this scandal may be different. With a month to go before elections, Trump’s approval ratings might not have time to recover before the general election. On top of that, each other time Trump has said something offensive, it has been toward a particular group of people, for example Mexicans, veterans, and Muslims. However, where not everyone knows a minority or a Muslim personally, everyone knows multiple women, and this time Trump’s remarks impact half of America’s population. This might not have mattered in an era where women could not vote, but thankfully we live in better times, and humiliating half of the voter base might not be the best strategy to win the presidential race.
On top of that, this tape may have been the most damaging yet to his relationship with the Republican party, one of the two major political parties in the United States. While Trump has always been an outsider and has never been very close to the Republican establishment, he will nonetheless need their support to have any hope to win the general election. Several major Republican figures, most significantly the Bush dynasty, had already said prior to the leaked tape that they would not be supporting Trump in the election. This latest scandal has caused another round of Republican figures to leave Trump, possibly the biggest yet. Most significantly, Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, one of the most powerful politicians in America, has deserted him. While Ryan did not explicitly stop supporting Trump, he has said he will be directing his efforts now to ensuring Hillary Clinton does not have a Democrat-controlled Congress; this is a clear indication that Ryan has given up on Trump being able to win the general election.
The light at the end of the tunnel for Trump has not collapsed yet. He still has a loyal support base which he knows will never desert him. Clinton has also not proven to be the strongest opponent, having been brought down by her own scandals, particularly Emailgate (I would appreciate it if every political scandal would stop being called __gate, but that’s neither here nor there). Trump has truly proven more resilient to political blunders than any politician in recent history, and has survived and even thrived where others would have fallen. Perhaps that is a testament to just how much the American public is sick of the status quo, and how much they want change. However, there is a base level of human dignity that should be untouchable, and Trump is getting dangerously close to that line. Trump’s campaign will have their work cut out for them in the next month, and it is unknown if Trump still stands a chance in the general election. We’ll see in November.
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