Over the course of the last year, Donald Trump has said a lot of outrageous things and we’ve learned a lot about his outrageous past behavior. Reporters like David Fahrenthold and Kurt Eichenwald continue to uncover stories about the Republican nominee that would have sunk the campaigns of any candidate in the past. But often these stories repeat what we already know about him and fail to tackle anything more outrageous than what has already surfaced. As a result, we seemed to have reached a sort of Trump fatigue where, in order to garner any real attention, new revelations have to be more shocking than the candidate bragging about sexual assault.
So let’s just be clear. This is still the candidate who…
- Questioned the citizenship of our first African American president
- Said Mexicans were criminals and rapists
- Mocked a sitting Senator for being a POW
- Said a federal judge couldn’t be impartial because of his Mexican heritage
- Promised to round up and deport 11 million undocumented immigrants
- Suggested that there should be a religious test for people to immigrate to this country
- Mocked a disabled reporter and disparaged a Gold Star family
- Admires foreign dictators
- Suggested that we should torture terrorists and go after their families
- Wants to roll back the 1st amendment protections for a free press
- Suggested that women who get abortions should be punished
- Said that, if elected, he would jail his opponent
- Wouldn’t commit to accepting the results of this election
- Won’t release his tax returns
Those are just some of the things he has said/done during the course of this campaign. It doesn’t even begin to document what we’ve learned about his past. Of course, there is also Trump’s future – which includes court judgements about things like his fake university, allegations about raping a 13 year old, and involvement in voter intimidation (to name a few).
Because the media needed a jolt from this Trump fatigue and the prospects of talking about a landslide election for the next week, we watched as they lit their hair on fire in another Clinton outrage drama cycle. I have to wonder if American voters are as fickle as a lot of pundits assume when they try to interpret the latest poll results. Does that list up above disappear from their minds when there is not a new jumpstart of outrage about Trump? Or do they go into the polling booth with a more clear-eyed view of these two candidates that has developed over the last year? I guess we’ll soon find out, but I’m still betting on more of the latter.
