By Stephen Macaulay

While it is far too easy to mock Donald Trump’s meandering public rants as he travels across the country, it has now gotten to the point where well-meaning Trump supporters need to take a look in the mirror and ask themselves whether this man, who is becoming increasingly bizarre in his performances, has the mental stability, acuity, and moral compass necessary to become the president of the United States.

When the Access Hollywood tape came out as the October Surprise for to the 2016 presidential election, the time when Trump said of women, “And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything,” it was dismissed as “locker-room talk.” 

Saturday, at a rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, Trump said:

“Arnold Palmer was all man. And I say that in all due respect to women and I love women. But this guy, this guy, this is a guy that was all man. This man was strong and tough. And I refused to say it, but when he took showers with the other pros, they came out of there, they said, ‘Oh my God, that’s unbelievable.’”

Perhaps in his mind he was balancing the pussy with Arnold Palmer’s penis.

While some of you may be shocked by that statement, let’s get this straight: This is discourse that is predicated on the statements of Donald Trump.

He took the locker room and put it on the stage.

Palmer hailed from that area in Pennsylvania, which presumably was the reason why Trump opened his speech with that remark. This wasn’t a case where he was distracted by something and started a riff. No, he possibly wanted the people of Latrobe to know that he knew where he was (which he apparently didn’t a couple weeks earlier, when he insulted Detroit while speaking at the Economic Club of Detroit). 

Instead of talking about Palmer’s four Masters, two Open Championships, one US Open championship, and other accomplishments, Trump headed to the locker room.

Then, in his Latrobe presentation, he said of his opponent Kamala Harris, “You’re a shit vice president.”

“Shit vice president.”

He could have used the adjectives “lousy,” “dreadful,” atrocious,” “inferior,” or a multitude of other words that would be descriptive.

But no, “shit.”

Trump is creating a permission environment for people where anything goes. He non-apologetically lies about things. He insults fellow Americans. He threatens Americans who don’t support him. And he uses what is — or once was — considered “locker-room” language in public.

The evening before Latrobe, at the Al Smith Dinner, hosted by Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, Trump’s tirade included, “I don’t give a shit if this is comedy or not.”

“I don’t give a shit if this is comedy or not,” but you certainly don’t use that language (1) at a white-tie event that (2) has priests in attendance.

What message does that send not only to voters but to their children?

If the man who behaves and says what he does, who calls people names and belittles them in a crude and angry manner, is the person that people should respect and possibly even look up to, what is the level we have as a society fallen to?

For many people Kamala Harris is not the candidate that they can support.

Fine.

But among other things a vote for Donald Trump is support for a man who is becoming increasingly vulgar.

Explain that to your mother — you know, the person who would figuratively wash your mouth out with soap if you talked about pussys, penises or other shit -- or your children or grandchildren, the people whom you would do that to were they to use that boorish language.

Trump is anything but a representative of what a “great” America should be.

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