http://www.weeklystandard.com/the-mans-not-for-changing/article/2002774The Man's Not for ChangingJUN 20, 2016 | By STEPHEN F. HAYES
In the aftermath of Donald Trump's bigoted attacks on a federal district judge, one Republican leader after another last week condemned the candidate's remarks and then publicly declared their hope that Trump will change.
Senator Bob Corker said Trump has two or three weeks to get his campaign on track: "This is a time for him to pivot and, by the way, I want to encourage that." Senator John Thune said Trump is "going to have to adapt." Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, in an interview on CNN, denounced Trump's comments but praised the presumptive GOP nominee for his speech on primary night and, like so many others, sounded a note of optimism. "I haven't given up hope, but certainly last week was not a good week for Donald Trump."
It's time, senator. Give up.
The problem isn't Donald Trump's last week. It's Donald Trump. And anyone still holding out hope that Trump will change is fooling himself.
In late April, Trump hinted at a coming metamorphosis. "I'm going to be so presidential that you people will be so bored," he said. "And I'll come back as a presidential person." How's that working out?
Maybe he meant what he said, maybe he didn't. It doesn't really matter. He's shown again and again and again that he's not going to change—that he probably couldn't change even if he tried. It's looking increasingly likely that general-election Trump will be the same as Republican-primary Trump, because the loutish, unstable man-child we've seen over the past year is the real Donald Trump.
Trump entered the presidential race on June 16, 2015, with a speech suggesting Mexicans are rapists. He spent the next year creating controversy after controversy. It's a record of boorish behavior so familiar by now that even listing its highlights has become an election-year cliché. The toplines almost always include: denigrating POWs, ridiculing the looks of Carly Fiorina and Heidi Cruz, banning Muslims, suggesting Megyn Kelly was menstruating when she asked tough questions, and making fun of a reporter's disability.
And it's a record so long that many of the outrages—even those that would have destroyed conventional candidacies—have already been forgotten. Who even remembers Trump's praise for "Operation Wetback," the forced deportation of illegal immigrants in the 1950s that led to scores of deaths and widespread suffering, as a model for handling immigration today? Or his belittling of Ben Carson's conversion to Christianity? Or his mocking of Mitt Romney's faith? His suggestion that Marco Rubio supports immigration reform only because his parents are Hispanic? Or his claim that Ted Cruz "appointed the judge" responsible for Obamacare? Or the time he falsely claimed that the Better Business Bureau gave its highest ratings to Trump University, dramatically producing a fax during a debate that he said proved his point? (It didn't.)
For one full year, this has been Donald Trump. And it's Donald Trump still.
After virtually everyone in public life condemned his comments on Judge Gonzalo Curiel, Trump would not apologize or retract them, saying in a cowardly statement only that he regrets they were "misconstrued." But that same day, in a campaign conference call, Trump had instructed his surrogates and aides to intensify the attacks on the judge. Either Trump doesn't recognize his own bigotry or he thinks doubling down on it is a winning strategy.
Many Republican leaders back Trump anyway. Their reasoning is, well, complicated: Trump may be a bigot and a boor, but he's our bigot and he's our boor, so he must be president.
Some of them—perhaps most of them—understand that this argument is self-discrediting and self-debasing. They know it's indefensible to accept and promote the Trump that they've seen over the past year, so they pretend that he might change—giving more weight to a 15-minute speech he read from a teleprompter than the multitude of disqualifying moments they've observed throughout his candidacy. "Using a prepared text last night and not attacking any other Americans was a good start," McConnell said on June 8, reiterating his support for Trump. McConnell said he's holding out hope for a "more thoughtful Trump," which is like wishing for warmer ice.
All in all, it's a triumph of hope over experience. Trump isn't going to change. And a party that works to elect him deserves its fate.
