The One and Only Question EVERY Republican Candidate Should Be Asked: The Role Model Thing
by Bob Schwartz
Republican candidates are going to be asked lots of questions about their attitudes toward Trump, his character and his policies. The answers will be a combination of party-line loyalty, evasion, gibberish or silence.
All those questions should be avoided, or at least not central. There is only one question these Republican candidates should be asked—one that is not hypothetical, one that demands a yes-or-no answer, one that has been asked in public opinion polls but is not (yet) a part of our political discourse:
Do you believe that Donald Trump is a good role model for your children and grandchildren?
We already know that in public opinion polls, many Republicans still say they believe he is. But those respondents are answering a poll; they are not answering publicly as candidates for office.
Any candidate who says they believe that Trump is a good role model for their children or grandchildren should be automatically disqualified for public office. In fact, if I were interviewing people for any job, I might ask the same question, and might reject the job candidates who say “yes” for the same reason: Without going into any of the other obvious character or moral deficiencies, Trump is demonstrably a chronic (some would say pathological) liar.
You can try to defend or explain away certain character or moral problems. But a lie is a lie (the Washington Post counts 4,229 presidential false or misleading statements so far).
So any Republican candidate who says they want their children or grandchildren to “be like Trump” are wishing on their beloved young ones a life marked by, among other shortcomings, telling a constant stream of lies about virtually everything. Are those candidates really the sort of people you want anywhere near your government?
Bob Schwartz 
You nailed it. This is it. This is the point I struggle with every time I think about Trump supporters. No matter what his policies are, he simply does not possess the qualities the president of the United States should have. I had not thought about turning this concern into a question of whether he is a good role model for children or not, but I will from now on. Who could honestly say yes?
Thanks for the comment. Your last sentence–Who could honestly say yes?–gets to the heart of something. One answer is that in a Quinnipiac poll in January, 72% of Republican voters said that Trump was a good role model for children. They don’t all really believe that, and your word “honestly” is the key. Republican voters and Republican politicians have given up on being honest, with others and more importantly with themselves, afraid of losing some advantage that comes with Republican control, based on greed, power, ideology, hatred, whatever. Being honest and being true to yourself is as much a practice as lying to others and yourself, just harder and less selfish. I hope that more of those Americans will resume that better practice. Thanks again.