Skip to content
Author
PUBLISHED: | UPDATED:

Rudy Giuliani, former New York City mayor and current uber-screechy supporter of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, accidentally told the truth this weekend, revealing the real issue that undergirds a campaign that should’ve crumbled long ago.

Putting an absurdly optimistic spin on The New York Times’ revelation that Trump has likely gone years without paying a dime in federal income taxes, Giuliani contrasted his guy with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton: “Don’t you think a man who has this kind of economic genius is a lot better for the United States than a woman.”

Boom. There you have it, folks. In Giuliani veritas.

For all the issues that surround Clinton — some legitimate, some doomed to live forever in the realm of conspiracies — the one she will never shake is the simplest: She’s a she. And that’s too much to handle for people like Trump and the wishful alpha males he has surrounded himself with.

It’s also too much for many of Trump’s supporters to handle, as evidenced by: their embrace of a candidate who has proved himself to be a raging sexist; their vile rants against Clinton’s looks and supposed frailty; and their easy hurling of the c-word and b-word at Trump rallies.

A man is a lot better for the United States than a woman. For some — more than I would’ve expected, frankly — the story begins and ends there.

I know what’s coming as I write this — it’s as predictable as the sun rising in the morning: Some male readers will say I’m an effete liberal p-word, that I’m only writing this to make women like me, that I’m playing the gender card to defend someone who should be in prison, that I’m “gay,” that I’m a “cuck” (a favorite term of the alt-right, rooted in the word “cuckold”) and that someone has taken my testicles and put them in a jar.

Feel free to send those thoughts along. I don’t care.

But when you’re done being outraged, take a step back and consider what is motivating you to support a man who, in just the past week, has done the following things:

*Walked into a presidential debate transparently unprepared and then interrupted his female opponent over and over again as if nothing she said mattered.

*Doubled down on past body-shaming insults he leveled against a former Miss Universe winner, saying she “gained a massive amount of weight” and suggesting she was lucky he had been around to point that out to her.

*Referred to that same Miss Universe winner as disgusting and encouraged people to “check out” her sex tape. No such sex tape exists.

*Suggested that the infidelities of former President Bill Clinton are fair game and reflect poorly on Hillary Clinton.

*Continued that line of thinking at a Saturday night rally by suggesting, with absolutely no evidence, that Hillary Clinton has also been unfaithful: “I don’t even think she’s loyal to Bill, you want to know the truth. And really folks really, why should she be, right? Why should she be?”

*Allowed top surrogate Giuliani to say that by supporting her husband during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Clinton showed she is “too stupid to be president.”

*Ignored media reports on allegations that he wanted to fire women at one of his clubs because they weren’t pretty enough and that he made a cameo — fully clothed, by the grace of God — in a pornographic Playboy video.

*Mocked Clinton’s health by hunching over and walking unsteadily onstage at a rally.

*Let Giuliani make his “better for the United States than a woman” comment without any clarification or statement from the campaign.

Again, that’s in the past week. And that list doesn’t include the stuff unrelated to sexism that was happening at the same time: a Washington Post report that found the Trump Foundation never got the certification required in New York state to solicit money from the public; a Newsweek report that Trump violated the U.S. trade embargo with Cuba; and the aforementioned New York Times piece on Trump’s taxes.

Do we hear any questions or concerns from Trump’s fervent supporters? No.

Do we hear objections or condemnations from Republican stalwarts like House Speaker Paul Ryan or Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell? No.

There are ideological and policy related reasons for people to support Trump. And there are ideological and ethical reasons to not support Clinton.

But there is no reason to let the kind of despicable, sexist behavior we’ve seen out of the Trump campaign over the past week go unaddressed.

Unless …

Unless we’re of the same mind as Trump and his crew of adulterers like Giuliani and Newt Gingrich. Unless we think it’s a hoot to sit around with folks like Roger Ailes, booted from Fox News over sexual harassment allegations, and laugh at the thought of “a broad” becoming president.

It has been noted over and over again that no presidential candidate in history could survive the gaffes and scandals that, in Trumpworld, have become daily occurrences.

There’s a reason for that.

Part of it stems from Clinton herself being a flawed and distrusted candidate.

And part of it, a part I believe is larger than many men will admit, stems from the boneheaded belief, blurted by Giuliani, that a man “is a lot better for the United States than a woman.”

rhuppke@chicagotribune.com