It’s really come to this

Editor’s Note: This article does not representthe views of the ‘Prince’.

Let’s just get one thing straight. There is, to any rational observer, no possible sense of equivalence between the flaws of Donald Trump and the flaws of Hillary Clinton. Period.

On Friday, a tape was released of the Republican nominee for President of the United States proudly bragging about sexual assault. Not “locker room banter” or Bill Clinton golf-course chatter, to quote Trump himself. That’s not what groping a woman without her consent is. It’s sexual assault, full stop.

In case you’ve been under a rock for the last 15 months, this from a man who opened his campaign by calling Mexicans rapists, seeking to ban all Muslims from the United States, insulting tortured veterans like John McCain, mocking a reporter’s disability, saying a judge couldn’t do his job because his parents were Mexican, claiming black people in this country were all “living in hell,” attacking a Gold Star family, retweeting white supremacists, and calling women “slobs, dogs, and pigs.”

And now, from the man who would be the most visible role model to millions of children across this country, overt praise of sexual assault. Beyond the tagline quote of “when you’re a star … you can do anything. Grab ‘em by the pussy,” I urge you to watch the full 2005 clip from The Washington Post.

If you do, you’ll hear the insolent mind of a 15-year-old, from the mouth of a man then in his late 50s. The mind of a man impervious to facts, rationality, decency, or basic human respect. The mind of a man for whom women are objects to be taken, to be won, to be conquered, to be judged solely on how quickly they make blood flow to his whatever.

The only shocking thing about the fallout from this video — with GOP leaders across the country pulling their support and openly calling for their own nominee to drop out of the race — is that it took this level of overt, base infancy for them to finally pull the trigger. Insulting Mexicans, Muslims, African-Americans, the disabled, the poor, and others was apparently not enough, given that GOP candidates like Sen. Kelly Ayotte (NH) referred to Trump as a “role model” as recently as last week. But the thing is, disgusted though we are morally obligated to be, is anyone really surprised by this video or that it exists? Of course we knew Trump thought this way; we’ve known that about him since literally the first day of his campaign.

But Hillary sent some emails, so “both candidates are deeply flawed.”

More than anything else, it is this false sense of equivalence that drives me crazy in this campaign. Yes, both candidates have lied, but to quote Nick Kristof, “if deception were a sport, Trump would be the Olympic gold medalist; Clinton would be an honorable mention at her local Y.” Yes, both have flip-flopped on political positions, but Trump frequently doing so within the span of a paragraph simply does not compare to Clinton changing her mind on gay marriage over a period of years. On this and a thousand other points of comparison, there simply is no comparison to be made. Just because they are two people running for the same job does not mean that whatever they both do is equally controversial, or flawed, or disgusting, or disgraceful.

One candidate has incited violence at his rallies, knows nothing about anything, is the least qualified nominee for President in modern history, and has been endorsed by the Klan. The other hasn’t. One candidate’s only accomplishment is running a business sustained mainly by tax breaks and bankruptcy laws, the other is objectively the most prepared presidential candidate in the history of this country. One candidate can barely finish a sentence, can be baited by a tweet, thinks women aren’t people, and lost a billion dollars in a single year. The other candidate has spent her entire professional life fighting for children and families, and yes, her own political ambitions. One candidate has lost the support of leaders of his party, been called the “textbook definition” of racism by the Republican Speaker of the House, and is now facing open calls by senators and congressmen in his own party to drop out of the race for the decency of the country.

Yes, Hillary sent some emails, gave some speeches, and held back the truth more than she should have. But to call the two equal, or equally flawed, is to ignore the definition of the term.

Ryan Dukeman is a Wilson School major from Westwood, Mass. He can be reached at rdukeman@princeton.edu.