Trump gets further tainted by verdict

The front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination, former President Donald Trump, was found liable Tuesday for the sexual abuse of writer E. Jean Carroll. The federal jury of six men and three women in the civil case also held him liable for defaming her when he called her lawsuit a hoax.

Jurors were told they should find that Trump sexually abused Carroll if they believed he forcibly subjected her to being touched in her sexual or intimate parts. The unanimous verdict also awarded Carroll $5 million in damages.

Nobody who’s paid attention in recent years will be surprised. Trump, 76, has always avoided accountability for such stories publicly raised by women before. Nobody should be surprised, either, that Trump would accuse his accuser in vile terms of lying. With gaslighting his brand, Trump predictably reacted to the verdict by evoking a left-wing “witch hunt.”

Once upon a time, a jury confirming sex abuse even in one’s distant past would have been enough of an affront to voters to end any politician’s campaign whether for town supervisor or U.S. senator. But because his cult of personality continues to grasp the GOP despite his dubious tenure, Trump will still intimidate Republican opponents.

No party should get away with calling itself culturally conservative or values-based if this is the best role model it can offer. And yet, after his indictment last month in Manhattan on criminal charges related to payoffs to porn actress Stormy Daniels, Trump posted a big lead in polls over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the GOP primary. In a new Washington Post-ABC poll, 44% of voting-age adults say they would “definitely” or “probably” vote for Trump next year while 38% would surely or probably vote for President Joe Biden. The remaining 18% were either undecided or gave another answer.

But there is no strong voice in GOP power cliques to show the courage to rebel. This is a national organization so in the thrall of one individual that in 2020 it did not even write a platform for voters to read. That’s why, back in 2016, some pundits called it a “hostile takeover” as Trump captured the party’s nomination — and did not abandon him after audio recordings emerged of his repulsive grab-’em-by-the-you-know-what quotes. Now Carroll, a righteously angry victim, has proved in court, as was suspected all along, that it wasn’t just “locker room talk.”

By comparison, the current probes of Trump trying to retroactively rig the election, improperly taking classified documents, and inciting violence are political and constitutional.

Given the flawed policy and performance of Republicans and Democrats, voters need alternatives when they go to the polls. The tension between parties is supposed to motivate both to find better leaders.

The Carroll case shows anew that the GOP had best find a way to do better than Trump next year — if only to strike a blow for the moral behavior that so many of us consider conservative.