Guest Post: Dirt

Peter Sage's introduction:   Thad Guyer is an attorney who litigates on behalf of employee whistleblowers, so he pays close attention to the kinds of messages that are persuasive to judges and juries.   In this guest post Guyer observes that the Republican establishment is in panic mode and Rubio and Cruz are throwing up dirt too late to change the campaign.

The New York Times article that he links to in his first paragraph is worth your attention.   It will take five full minutes to read it.   It reports on the scramble of the Republican establishment to preserve itself.  Trump attracts Republican voters by criticizing Republican orthodoxy.  It reveals a grave problem for the GOP: that the orthodoxy of Republican establishment and donors is in conflict with what actual live Republican voters want.   The establishment is globalist, ideologically conservative, pro-immigration, and funded by Wall Street and the interest groups of K Street.  The voters are populist, nativist, and are angry about Wall Street power and influence 

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Thad Guyer's observation:

Dirt too late in a dirty political year? I agree with Anonymous that Rubio and the entire slate of Republicans waited far too late to try to stop Trump with scandal allegations before he smashed up their party. Today’s NYT piece gives the history of how all efforts to rally the party elite against Trump could not get traction. “Inside the Republican Party’s Desperate Mission to Stop Donald Trump” http://nyti.ms/1KSctk5. 

In law, personal relationships and politics, dirt that is raised late in a critical discussion raises as many questions about the sincerity, motive or integrity of the person raising it. If Rubio and others had integrity, wouldn’t they have sounded the alarm from the start about such a “con man”? Instead, now it sounds more akin to no honor among thieves, leaving the choice between a successful billionaire crook or a petty crook who never shows up for work except to collect his Senate paycheck. 

For 15 years straight, America has enjoyed presidents whose personal characters were not under a dirty cloud of personal financial scandal, sex in the White House, perjury or criminality. But if it comes down to a Trump versus Clinton race, we must accept we will be back to a presidency tainted by low character and scandal. Voters who want to offload Trump or Clinton can’t really do it in the name of getting honesty or decency from the alternative in the other party. In 2016, the immunity to dirt we built up during the Clinton years will almost surely give Trump a pass on any kind of dirt Rubio or the Democrats can throw at him-- especially when it is thrown so late.