It Won’t Be Trump. But If It Were . . .

The Republican front-runner is undeniably crude and vulgar — not merely in private as LBJ, say, or Nixon were, but on TV, 24/7, everywhere.

And it matters, because it cheapens the presidency, coarsens the discourse, erodes civility, feeds resentment, stokes prejudice, and seemingly rewards a bully.  (His numbers are yuuuuge!)

What’s more, according to Politifact, he is a colossal liar.

PolitiFact has been documenting Trump’s statements on our Truth-O-Meter, where we’ve rated 76 percent of them Mostly False, False or Pants on Fire, out of 77 statements checked. . . . In considering our annual Lie of the Year, we found our only real contenders were Trump’s . . .

He won’t win, but the damage he’s doing won’t be quickly undone.

(And, yes, while ISIS may or may not ever themselves produce a specific Trump recruitment video, it strains credulity to think they would not be pointing to Trump videos available on every network and cable channel that covers the news.  Especially here in the U.S., where they would most like to radicalize young people and where we’d most urgently like to see them not.  What young Muslim American likely hasn’t seen Trump nonstop?)

It won’t be Trump, but if it were . . . well, this Politico piece is completely fascinating.  (Thanks, Pete!)  It predicts a GOP-led third-party run against him.

(And by the way?  Senator Cruz, I’m sorry to say, is just as bad.  Just differently.)