Rod Dreher on the Trump Undertow

…that is sucking the Religious Right down:

Some of the Evangelical Old Guard is still standing behind the crotch-grabbing molester.  Bill Bennett, a Catholic social conservative stalwart, is not among them — but he’s stepping back for prudential reasons, not moral ones:

WILLIAM J. BENNETT, a Trump ally, to WaPo: Trump “should step down… It’s a shame, a crying shame, but he can’t win.”

— Robert Costa (@costareports) October 8, 2016

Not “because he is a moral disgrace,” but “because he can’t win.”

When stuff like this happens, apologists for the Party of Personal Responsibility demand to be graded on curve. We don’t hear “How is it that we, we ourselves and nobody else, got ourselves into the mess by nominating and fanatically supporting a sexual predator we have always known was a misogynous pornocrat?” Nope, instead we hear about how the Liberal Media is at fault for corrupting society and morals. Or it’s Hillary’s fault because feminists make men act this way in reaction to them. Or it’s the fault of the people who “distract” us from the Real Issues, such as the fact Bill Clinton Did It Too.

Yeah, here’s the thing, Trumpkins: You and you alone did this to yourselves. Nobody made you do it. Lots of people struggled to keep you from doing it. But you were too smart for them and you did it anyway. And now it is you and nobody else who is defending a sex predator–for Jesus–and imagining that people will turn against the Faith because Hillary Clinton will command it from her Dark Throne in Barad-dur.

No. People are being repelled from the Faith by you and your sick-making defenses of a sex predator. You are doing more damage to the Church than an external enemy could ever dream of doing.