Trump and Capone: A Study in Defending the Indefensible
CPhillips August 25, 2018
 Dana Loesch
The Republicans have backed themselves into a moral corner. Because of their dedication to Trump, the Republicans, especially the Religious Right, have become their own parody. The more time passes, the more obvious it becomes that with the exception of abortion the two parties are are virtually indistinguishable from each other morally. We couldn’t ask for a more straightforward illustration than Dana Loesch’s recent comments on NRATV.*
Even on abortion. Republicans are financing abortion too.
Here is what Loesch had to say– you can listen to it yourself here, starting at minute 23 :
They’re trying to Al Capone the president. I mean, you remember. Capone didn’t go down for murder,” Loesch said on NRATV. “Elliot Ness didn’t put him in for murder. He went in for tax fraud. Prosecutors didn’t care how he went down as long as he went down.
The moral argument over the president’s infidelities would never result in legal trouble. So they believe they have to take a lesson from the Clinton years and find a way to make it a legal problem. And that’s exactly what they’re using campaign finance for, an already unconstitutional set of laws to pull it off.
Loesch made clear that she believes all Trump voters knew very well about his adulteries, noting that he even published a book about them, meaning that conservatives accepted and excused such behavior in a presidential candidate. She attempted to clarify that while she “doesn’t approve or condone a single bit of it,” Bill Clinton’s own infidelities were “none of my business, except Bill Clinton did it in the Oval Office.”
First, let’s dispense what Loesch is not saying: she is not drawing a direct character comparison between her beloved Trump and “Scarface” Capone, as much of the leftist media wants to imply. She was making a point-to-point comparison of the method Trump’s opponents were using to go after him. I would guess this was a spur of the moment thought and one I’m sure she now regrets speaking openly.
That said, there is much that is still instructive for those who might be on the fence about Republicans and the current incarnation of the “Religious” Right. The harsh reality is that they have fought their political enemies for so long that they have become just like their political enemies. While Loesch correctly accuses democrats of taking a page from the Bill Clinton prosecution, she herself plagiarizes from his defense quite freely. In fact, when placed in historical context, her talk reveals that she differs from the secular leftist democrats on these points only in nuance and emphasis:
According to Loesch, good character apparently is not a necessary prerequisite of the presidency. A complete lack thereof certainly isn’t grounds for impeachment. Of course, I know that many presidents have suffered from a wide array of moral failings, but for the Republicans and “Religious” Right to excuse and ignore them is something comparatively new. Republicans have abandoned moral clarity for sheer Machiavellian practicality: if this man gives me what I want and isn’t as bad as the other person, I don’t care how corrupt or evil** he is. This is the traditional logic used for deals with the Devil. Evidently, there is an invisible, mystical line somewhere in the Oval Office that transforms “fun” into sin. For 1990s democrats, that line was defined by the particular role the president happened to be playing at the moment the fun occurred. Since Bill Clinton was “off duty” when philandering with Lewinski, it was his private business and none of ours. Loesch agrees the line exists, she just draws it based on time instead of function. What happens outside the Oval Office doesn’t matter, but whenever an incoming president crosses the White House threshold, suddenly it becomes her business.*** In both cases, this thinking provides a blind that allows the speaker to feel and seem “moral” while actually condoning and excusing blatant immorality. When you throw your public support behind a person of completely disreputable character whom you are fully aware was most probably involved in some kind of criminal behavior before you elected him, you can expect to make a complete fool of yourself splitting hairs in his defense. You will become increasingly frantic as you try to ward off what are, in fact, completely legitimate attacks by your opposition aimed at real wrongdoing you personally chose to ignore. Note that Loesch isn’t disputing the basic account, that her candidate paid off the strippers he cheated on his wife with, only that is isn’t “criminal” for a Republican candidate to do so. The level of ridiculousness reaches new heights with her allegorical-noncomparison between Trump and Capone. The fact that Loesch felt at such a loss for fodder for a good, moral defense for Trump shows her desperation and that of other Trump supporters. Sadly, however much Republicans may jabber on, upcoming generations will rightly disdain this kind of foolishness and the party hacks that spout it. (Not to mention the organizations they represent–take heed, NRA.) Perhaps the saddest point of all is that this was entirely unnecessary and this should have been obvious to someone of Loesch’s wit. When faced with the task of electing someone to the single most volatile and contentious position in government at a time when it is virtually impossible to conceal even simple, honest mistakes, Republicans and main-line evangelicals threw their lot in with a man who is the antithesis of everything they’ve rightly demanded in a principled politician–a man they knew in advance was thoroughly dishonest and very likely guilty of criminal behavior. That’s right; Trump supporters themselves invited the kind of investigations and proceedings about which Loesch is now complaining. It doesn’t require a prophet to have foreseen this mess; all it would have taken was a strong stand on principles set in place decades ago.
In the final analysis, Loesch’s commentary is proof of a deeper, more uncomfortable reality. The party of Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority no longer holds the moral high ground. It ceded it of its own volition when it elected Trump. There are no longer any “good guys” in America in terms of political parties–just a choice between which morally compromised organization happens to reflect your own current political goals. Those seeking a positive good must face the hard choice of fomenting an insurrection within their respective parties or else separating from them. If not, Americans will have formalized and cemented the two-party “lesser evil” system exploited so successfully by Trump in 2016. Far from “saving” America or making it “great” again, that will only hasten its demise.
*Let me add that I am a strong supporter of the Second Amendment and a gun owner myself. But the workability of an armed populace is contingent upon the reality of a moral populace. As such, the NRA and their spokespeople should be held to a higher standard.
**Yes, cheating on the person you swore lifelong fidelity to, especially systematically, is evil. Perhaps not as evil as murder or genocide, but the fact that there is someone worse out there in no way makes the cheater any better.
***I would be very interested to hear Loesch’s take on things if Trump is proven to be philandering as president, as I have no doubt he is. Will it suddenly become “her business” to stand up to him? I somehow doubt it.
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