Many articles have been written about President Donald Trump’s influence on the modern-day Republican Party and the reluctance of Republicans to openly criticize him. But journalist Michael Tomasky, in an April 15 opinion piece for the Daily Beast, asserts that Trumpism is merely a symptom of the GOP’s overall ugliness — not the sole cause.
Tomasky recalls that when President Bill Clinton lied under oath about his extramarital affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky in the late 1990s, he incurred the wrath of Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr. The author then compares Clinton’s activities to the Trump-era GOP, concluding that the latter is much worse.
“Clinton lied to his people for one reason: he knew that if he told the truth, they would abandon him,” Tomasky explains. “His support within his party would collapse, he knew, if he acknowledged having sullied the presidency in that way.”
View the complete April 15 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.