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We Don’t Need No Stinking Pivot!

Photo: James Devaney

Pivot, schmivot! Donald Trump is once again on the clock to prove that his latest pivot can last more than 36 hours and that he is now ready to be President of the United States. In the past, when people spoke of a candidate’s pivot, they were referring to the shift which must occur between the primary—where the goal is to win over the party’s base—to the general election—where the goal is to retain that base while also appealing to a broader audience of undecided voters, voters who are not affiliated with either major party, and voters from the opposing party who are lukewarm about their own party’s candidate.

“Pivot” has never meant growing up from a toddler to an adult, ceasing to hurl insults at everyone who has offended the thin-skinned candidate, or simply showing any small sign of having a temperament suitable for the office the candidate seeks. Pivoting, in political terms, has traditionally meant tailoring and focusing the message for the new audience, not trying to figure out what the message is going to be, especially with a mere 77 days left before election day.

Even in basketball, the pivot is used by the player in possession of the ball to better position himself or herself to make a play. It’s not used for gaining possession of the ball; one has to be in control of the ball before the pivot becomes necessary.

The pivot which politicians, RNC bigwigs, and many voters have been calling for from Donald Trump fits neither of these descriptions. He can’t tailor his message from the primaries to fit the larger general electorate because he had no message then, and he has no message now; and he’s not currently in possession of the ball, given his sliding poll numbers. So what is this “pivot” of which everyone has been speaking?

Donald Trump has said one thing in the last fourteen months with which I wholeheartedly agree: “I am who I am.” And that, fellow voters, is all we need to know!

For the past fourteen months, we’ve all been watching the hottest reality TV show in history. This show beats 19 Kids and Counting, Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo, and all of the others combined. Our favorite show, Donald Trump Live!, is broadcast seven days a week on cable, network news, and the Internet, with new episodes every day—often multiple episodes in one day. And we keep tuning in because we’re so morbidly fascinated by the bizarre things we see and hear that we just can’t help ourselves. We don’t want to miss a single episode, because we have to see what he can possibly do today that will top yesterday’s or last week’s stunt.

After every episode, the TV news hosts gather their pundits around the tables to parse the latest word vomit and always to speculate about when the “pivot” will come. And after the episodes during which Trump has made some slight nod toward behaving like an adult, many assume that he has made the long-awaited “pivot” and then proceed to speculate on how long it will last this time.

Here’s the thing: There is no pivot. This “candidate” has had fourteen months in which to articulate a message, but he has squandered that time on picking fights, inciting violence, insulting every person and every group of people who have crossed his path, inciting hatred and intolerance against whole ethnic and religious communities, and in no way demonstrating the temperament necessary for being the leader of the free world.

There is no pivot because he has had fourteen months in which to gain possession of the ball against a flawed, vulnerable opponent; but he has squandered that time attacking talk show hosts, media outlets, and everyone else except his opponent.

There is no pivot because he doesn’t know the rules of the game he’s trying to play. On January 20, 2017, either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton will place his or her hand on a Bible and repeat the words, “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” For Donald Trump to honestly make that pledge, he would first have to study the Constitution, since until now he has shown no signs of ever having read it.

There is no pivot because one does not undo fourteen months of bizarre reality TV behavior and become a responsible leader in 77 days. No one could make that dramatic a change in that length of time. Tonight on Anderson Cooper’s AC360, Ana Navarro–speaking for Latino voters–said, “We’re not going to get election day amnesia.” Everyone recalls that Trump’s earliest comments in this campaign were about illegal Mexican immigrants. Maria Cardona followed up with the comment, “We’re not going to un-see or un-hear what he has done and said in the last 428 days.” In other words, he is who he is.

Change is hard for everyone; trust me, I’ve tried it. I’ve never smoked, but I’ve known many who’ve tried to quit that habit, and very few have succeeded on the first try. A habit which I’ve long needed to break is sitting on the sofa to eat dinner, on the nights when no family or friends are here, while watching the news, only to wake up around 11:00-12:00 remembering that the last face I saw was Anderson Cooper’s sometime during AC360. By the time I’ve turned off the TV, carried my dishes to the kitchen and rinsed them, checked the doors and set the alarm, washed my face, and brushed my teeth, I’m wide awake again. This is not smart; this is dumb. But I’ll be damned if I can break the habit, and it’s been years. I also need to change the consistency of my exercise habits, but we’ll talk about that another time.

The point is that what’s needed here for the star of our favorite show is not just a tweaking or tailoring of the message or better positioning himself to make his final play. What is needed for this person is a change of character, a change in his intellect, a change in his heart, a change in his morals, and a lot more; and those kinds of things don’t happen in 77 days, especially when the person has 70 years behind him.

Trump has said it repeatedly: “I am who I am.” Amen, Brother! During these last fourteen months, Trump has shown himself to be a loud-mouthed, arrogant bigot with no capacity for empathy or compassion. He has made fun of his opponents, of people with disabilities, of media personalities, of Gold Star families, of military heroes. He has promised to deport 11 million people (though that changes in each new episode), to ban a whole religious group from entering the country, to build a wall along an entire border, and all the other things you’ve heard as often as I have.

The things he has said in rallies are the same sorts of things he’s said his whole life, and the attitudes are the same ones he’s always had. In other words, he is who he is, and 77 days won’t change that.

He’s always demeaned women and boasted of his sexual conquests, he’s advanced conspiracy theories, he’s been accused of and sued for fraud and rape, he’s been guilty of dishonest business practices including according to recent reports a practice called greenmailing, he’s filed four bankruptcies, he’s been ranked the biggest liar ever rated by fact-checking organizations, and you know the rest. His adamant refusal to release his tax returns speaks volumes about his dishonesty. One who has nothing to hide does not so steadfastly resist demands for transparency.

With all of this as background—70 years and two months, 14 of those months as a candidate for POTUS—in a recent episode of our favorite reality show, he spoke these 63 words:

Sometimes, in the heat of debate and speaking on a multitude of issues, you don’t choose the right words or you say the wrong thing. I have done that. And believe it or not, I regret it. And I do regret it, particularly where it may have caused personal pain. Too much is at stake for us to be consumed with these issues.

You’d have thought we were at a tent revival and some people had just felt the spirit of God descend on them. Hallelujah, he’s pivoted! Now he’s presidential!

Even if there were a hint of sincerity in those 63 words, Donald Trump has spoken millions of words in his life; and those millions of words can’t be erased by a brief admission of having said some unspecified things about unspecified people which have done unspecified damage. This so-called apology does not suggest remorse or empathy and does not suggest a change in direction, aka “pivot.” One desperate comment does not absolve him for 14 months of irresponsible and dangerous rhetoric or 70 years of shady morals and ethics.

The real question is, with all of this evidence, why are we even still having this conversation? How on earth did our bar get set so low that a person without the slightest trace of presidential character can say 63 words and make people believe he’s qualified to be given the nuclear codes? How did our bar get set so low that we celebrate when a person running for president talks ever-so-slightly more like a grown-up for three days?

And why is Donald Trump the one person who receives this special treatment? S. E. Cupp, in a CNN article “Media Should Stop Indulging Trump Pivot Talk” (08/22/2016), says:

Yet this reality [facts cited in the previous paragraph] doesn’t seem to stop the media offering the Trump campaign the privilege of the pivot treatment. No one suggested, for example, that after Hillary Clinton admitted keeping a private server at her house was a bad idea that she was somehow pivoting toward becoming a more truthful person or accountable person. Yet, we are discussing on an almost daily basis whether Trump can pivot toward becoming a less extreme person.

What is the attraction of Donald Trump?

Trump is a morbid fascination, like the gruesome car accident that people crane their necks to see or the drunk stumbling around and falling down in the parking lot or the video that’s so stupidly amusing we watch it fifteen times while shaking our heads at how stupid it is. We can’t turn our heads from this reality show because we’re afraid we’ll miss the next outrageous performance.

Trump is also a celebrity. Even though I don’t watch reality TV or beauty pageants, I’ve long known his name as someone who built big buildings and plastered his name on them in giant letters; I recall standing in front of the Trump Towers bewildered by the sight. And I of course have heard his favorite lines from the TV shows. Even before he became a wannabe politician, he was a universally known name, a brand, someone who represented big business and the glittery New York social world. In our celebrity-obsessed culture, many people are starstruck over seeing someone famous in person. Feeling like part of his tribe and maybe even getting a chance for a selfie with him hold an irresistible appeal for lots of people.

Trump is bigger than life. Like the ridiculous letters on his buildings and his plane, he’s yuuuge. His reputation for success is evidence that he can turn anything he touches to the gaudy gold with which his whole house is gilded. If he’s built all of these companies, of course he can manage the country. How lucky would our country be to have a person of his professional caliber in the White House! And as long as he keeps those tax returns secret, the illusion of his being the consummate businessman can’t be disproved.

And finally, for the angry white men who comprise his base, Trump is a folk hero: he stands in front of audiences and brazenly speaks the forbidden words they have also said but for which they have been socially ostracized. They feel cheated, disenfranchised, and ignored by a system that has been unfair to them. Here, in this arena, however, they are the “in crowd,” their opinions are the majority opinions, and they get to make fun of all those idiots who are so politically correct and who have made them feel inferior. They get to sucker punch anyone who threatens the sanctity of their club, and their leader condones their violence and offers to pay their legal fees. They get to escort the intruders out of the club and bask in the approving smile of their esteemed leader. In the microcosm of the Trump rally, they are at the top of the social order, and that’s intoxicating.

We don’t need no stinkin’ pivot! What we need is a candidate with integrity, discipline, and knowledge. As the saying goes, the leopard can’t change its spots. A pivot is a shift, a positioning, an adjustment; it’s not a metamorphosis into a whole different being. What voters really want is for Donald Trump to grow up, to start talking and acting like an adult; and that’s just not humanly possible in 77 days. Forget the pivot. Look for another candidate.

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