Let's Stay off the Trump coke train

Let's Stay off the Trump coke train
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It seems at least plausible that the Donald snorts up before he debates. It's consistent with his angry incoherence. And we don't hear him sniffling in more relaxed settings. So this from Carrie Fisher was not a tremendous surprise:

That Howard Dean raised the possibility after the first debate was surprising only because he's never been a rumor-monger, plus he's a medical doctor:

He later doubled down on this, but then said he was only suggesting it as a possibility to be considered, and finally left the matter hanging.

It's a juicy speculation. It wraps up a whole bunch of Trump bizarre's behaviors and not only explains them, but does so in a way that would quite possibly not only cost him the election, but drive his voting percentage to an historic low.

But I agree with what @EmoKidsLoveMe tweeted this morning:

I do care about cocaine. I take a salacious pleasure in thinking that this is yet another shoe in the gigantic Trump Shoe Emporium that might drop. But EmoKidsLoveMe is right. We should stay away from even teasing it as a possibility.

It's not simply that we shouldn't accuse people of sins and crimes when we only have speculation. Let Trump do that.

But there is a direct political reason why we should stay away from it.

Imagine that solid evidence emerged: traces of cocaine where his hands rested on the lectern, photos of him buying coke in Times Square ... you know, the place where he could shoot someone and not lose any voters. Republicans who had refused to un-endorse him would start shouting their condemnation from every public platform.

And then the story of his defeat would be: Trump was badly wounded by a tape in which he admitted to being a sexual predator, but was really done in by the discovery that he was a drug user.

That would let Republicans off the hook. Those who have stayed with him so far would be able to say that they had reluctantly supported Trump until evidence of his unfitness suddenly appeared. How could they have known he was a secret drug user?

True. They couldn't have known. Thus will they be able to mitigate their responsibility for enabling Trump to get as far as he has.

The narrative that 'twas drugs that killed the beast's chances lets the Republicans dodge the real question and the real responsibility: Why did you support him based on what we did know? How on earth did you yell and cheer for a person so bigoted, ignorant, and arrogant, a person espousing policies so contrary to fundamental American values?

The story we tell ourselves about Trump's historic defeat matters tremendously -- bigly -- to how we build our future. Being a cocaine user would be among the least important reasons Trump is utterly unqualified to hold public office. Pinning it on coke will get in the way of our understanding how a major political party got so far off the tracks that it almost traveled back in time to 1932.

So, let's stay away from the cocaine rumor-mongering so those more important and deeply disturbing reasons remain visible.

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