The Moral Authority Is Gone

We have watched the long and tumultuous career of Donald Trump with the same mixture of hope and concern as many Americans. We have been troubled by the ceaseless controversy that has surrounded him, but we have held to the belief that the office of the President should be accorded a measure of grace, and its occupant the benefit of any doubt.

Now, that doubt has been erased. The question is no longer whether the President is fit to lead, but whether the nation can abide a leader so deeply and disturbingly connected to unforgivable sin. The accumulated evidence of his association with the late Jeffrey Epstein and his horrific actions has become a moral stain that cannot be cleansed.

We have seen the photographs and the flight logs. We have read the sworn testimony of survivors who place Mr. Trump in the very orbit of this monstrous enterprise of exploitation and abuse. We have heard his own words, recorded over the years, which speak not with the horror and condemnation such evil deserves, but with a cavalier and chummy familiarity. These are not mere allegations of political misconduct; they are markers of a profound moral rot that has touched the highest office in the land.

The critical issue is no longer the specific legality of each action, but the undeniable pattern of behavior and the character it reveals. The President’s intimate and long-standing association with a convicted predator, his presence in the settings where unspeakable crimes occurred, and his glib dismissals of the gravity of it all, have shattered his moral authority. He has betrayed the most fundamental trust we place in a leader: the trust that he is a guardian of our nation’s decency.

What is at stake is the honor of the presidency itself. To allow a man so enmeshed in a saga of depravity to remain in office is to declare that such matters are of no consequence. It is to accept a debasement of the values we hold dear. It is to tell the world, and ourselves, that the Oval Office can be occupied by one whose judgment and character have been so catastrophically compromised.

The President’s capacity to serve as a moral leader for the nation is gone. His presence in the White House is a continuing insult to the victims of these crimes and a source of shame for the country.

The good of the nation must come first. Mr. Trump should resign. If he does not, the House of Representatives should initiate impeachment proceedings with the aim of removing him from office.


(Parody of 1974 Chicago Tribune Editorial)


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