From all walks public life, sexual predators are paying a price for their bad behavior.

Household names in entertainment, media, business and politics have seen their deeds exposed, their careers ruined.



As industry leaders topple, only the most prominent predator of them all gets a pass.



It's the man caught on tape describing how he likes to physically and sexually assault women by grabbing them "by the p - - -y."



It's the man publicly accused of sexual assaults by no fewer than a dozen women - the same man who threatened to sue every one of them, then sued none. And we all know why.



It's the man quoted as saying about women in a 1992 New York magazine article, "You have to treat 'em like s--t."



On that, Donald Trump kept his word.



There's a reason Trump has been uncharacteristically subdued as these predators are exposed.

He's one of them.



Bill Clinton was impeached for his wrongdoing with women, perhaps rightly so.



Trump was elected for his.



But unlike Clinton or any of the other 43 who came before him, Trump is a man of uncommon cruelty, a leader with no moral compass, dragging the nation toward war and using the government to defy the rule of law and punish his enemies.



Now our nation's predator in chief has stopped short of calling for accused pedophile Roy Moore to withdraw from Alabama's Dec. 12 Senate race.



Many Republicans from the party's Trump wing are rushing to Moore's defense, even though anyone with the ability to think clearly knows the allegations are likely true.



State Treasurer Josh Mandel, embracer of white supremacists, dangerous demagogue and likely Republican opponent to incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown in next year's Senate race, declined any comment on the accusations against Moore.



Gotta be careful not to anger any pedophiles who might be leaning his way.



The leading watchdog in exposing Democratic and Republican wrongdoers has been the New York Times, described by many nitwits on the right as an arm of the Democratic Party.



That's the same Times that took down Harvey Weinstein, one of the planet's most generous contributors to Democratic candidates and causes.



Meanwhile, many Republicans, notably Steve Bannon and his acolytes, are standing by their man Moore, ignoring an avalanche of evidence depicting him as a twisted pedophile.



Since Election Day 2016, reporters from across the country have ventured into working class, Rust Belt towns in a desperate search for an explanation of what makes these people tick.



Mining the minds of Trump voters has proven an extraordinarily tough task, especially as the president tries to take away their health care and offer them crumbs of a tax cut designed exclusively to reward corporations and rich people, while driving the country closer to insolvency.



We've seen the media's findings. The turn to Trump was driven by economic insecurity, anger at a rigged system, a Democratic nominee who didn't care about them. It was all those things - and more.



Because the elephant in Trump's room has always been about race.



As a candidate, he played to the racial fears of working-class whites.



As president, his unraveling of the Barak Obama legacy is a racist attempt to keep those same whites in his corner.



The best reporting on Donald Trump's America came in a Nov. 8 Politico story by Ken Kruse, who spent time with voters in Johnstown, Pa.



Johnstown is the largest city in Cambria County, a traditional Democratic stronghold. Trump crushed Clinton there by an astonishing 38 percent.



A month before the election, Trump traveled to Johnstown, looked them in the eye, and promised, " Your steel will come back...Your jobs will come back. The change you've been waiting for will finally arrive."



They're still waiting.



Because it's never arriving.



A year later, the mills are still closed. Jobs are still disappearing. Obamacare hasn't been repealed. Drug deaths are soaring.



And Johnstown's love for Trump is undiminished.



How can that be?



"Because he does what he says," Maggie Frear (cq) told Politico.



Actually, he doesn't.



So far, Trump has broken every one of his promises to Johnstown. But he has taken on NFL players who disrespected their flag.



And in Donald Trump's America, that's good enough.



"We don't watch no NFL now," said Pam Schilling, a Trump voter whose 32-year-old son died of a drug overdose months before the election. "We banned 'em."

Schilling said her husband even came up with an NFL nickname.

It's a vulgarity not worth repeating. But it makes my point about race.

Brent Larkin was The Plain Dealer's editorial director from 1991 until his retirement in 2009.

To reach Brent Larkin: blarkin@cleveland.com

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