Can Donald Weather The Stormy?

Can it get any weirder?

Last night on CBS News long-running program 60 minutes, porn “actress”  Stormy Daniels talked with Anderson Cooper (whom I thought was ONLY on CNN) to discuss her alleged affair in 2006, with the man who would become the 45th President Of The United States, Donald Trump.

That headache you have this morning is from America collectively banging its head against a wall.

Thirty years ago, some chap named Gary Hart running for the Democratic nomination for President, was run out of the race for having one affair revealed. Probably didn’t help that the famous picture of Gary and Donna Rice was on a boat called “Monkey Business”

Look it up. I’m not kidding.

Yet in 2016 the country overlooked even more salacious rumors and audio about Trump to elect him President.

How did we get here?

Well, I personally think the country started on the long path of lowering the bar back in 1969 when Sen Ted Kennedy drove a car off a bridge and allowed Mary Jo Kopechne to die. (There is a movie review of the upcoming film  ‘Chappaquiddick’ here at Red State)

A sitting United States Senator is involved in a car crash that results in the death of a woman. He does not report said crash until the next morning while staff and family try to “explain” the incident. Kennedy pleaded guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of a crash and he later received a two-month suspended jail sentence. Just one year after the fatal incident, Kennedy won reelection for his Senate seat with 62% of the vote and went on to be reelected another six times in the state of Massachusetts.

I guess that would just shame the state of Massachusetts except for the next 39 years Ted Kennedy was lauded as a great legislator and the LION of the Senate. Someone to be admired. He left a woman to die and the state of Massachusetts and the nation shrugged and moved on.

Fast forward to 1992.

Bill Clinton is running for Democratic nomination for president just a mere four years after Gary Hart was sunk for his affair. Clinton had so many stories about his extramarital affairs floating around during his time as Arkansas Governor, his team coined the term “Bimbo Eruptions” to discredit the stories.

Bill wins the 1992 Presidential election in a 3-way race and goes on to win reelection in 1996 and will be impeached and face a trial in the Senate for lying under oath and obstruction of justice. The Clinton team chalks it up to lying about “sex” between two consenting adults and Clinton eventually leaves office with a 66% approval rating.

Thus, the stage was set for “The Donald” 16 years later.

While there are many incidents you could point out in this overall time period, these two examples were huge events that began to lower the bar of conduct for what we expect from our elected officials.

Donald Trump with his alleged history could have never weathered the storm of these type of these salacious stories back in 1988. Candidate Trump of 2016 not only weathered it, he used it to his advantage.

Who knows what last night’s story will do to him going forward but I’m sure the country is not going to be better off for it.

When we look back at how we got to lower the bar so low, Bill and Ted are partly to blame.