Donald Trump has happily revealed his loathsome self

There was an extraordinary moment in a speech Donald Trump gave on Thursday, at a time when his campaign is in mortal peril. With a parade of women coming out publicly to say that Trump has forced himself on them against their will — kissing them, groping them, walking in on them when they're dressing — one would think he'd take extra care to assure everyone, especially women, that he would never do such a thing. But in bringing up a People magazine reporter who has described how Trump pushed her against a wall and thrust his tongue down her throat during a 2005 visit to Mar-a-Lago when she was writing a story about him, Trump said something truly mind-boggling. "Look at her," he said. "Look at her words. You tell me what you think. I don't think so." The crowd cheered with glee.

There was no mistaking his message: I wouldn't have hit on this broad, because she's not hot enough (if you doubt that's what he meant, just watch the tape; it's unmistakable). Which is just what you say when everyone in America is wondering whether you're a sexual predator, right?

From the moment he began running for president, Trump has had one irrefutable claim to make: At a time when people are dissatisfied with politics, he's not a politician. There's no doubting it. Politicians have to at least pretend to know something about policy and the operations of government. Politicians feel obligated to have views that are at least somewhat consistent and coherent. And politicians are keenly aware of what other people think, and think about them.

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Indeed, that's one of the things that separates good politicians from bad ones: the ability to grasp how other people see the world, so you can determine how to persuade them. And part of that is understanding how they see you, and how that view might change depending on what you do and say.

That isn't to say Trump doesn't think a great deal about his public image. He's obsessed with it, and has been from the time he first became a public figure in the 1980s. But what he lacks is the ability to see himself as others see him, which for a politician is an occupational necessity.

Just think about the monumental lack of awareness it takes to respond in the way he has to this crisis in his campaign. The tape of him bragging to the obsequious toady Billy Bush about how he can sexually assault women at his will has sent his campaign reeling. He's dropping in the polls, Republican officeholders are un-endorsing him, and a whole new group of women has emerged to launch fresh (and exceedingly plausible) charges at him.

If he were a regular politician, Trump would huddle with his advisers and devise a plan to handle the controversy. It might be based on contrition or denial, but either way it would have to involve deciding on exactly what words he'd use whenever this topic came up. And — presumably with the participation of female advisers who could help him understand how women might be viewing this issue — he'd come up with ways to talk about it that would reassure women of his good will.

It's safe to say that commenting, even implicitly, on the looks of his accusers would not be part of that plan.

But think about it: Since this story broke last Friday, have you heard Trump say a single thing that demonstrates he's even attempting to understand women's perspectives on this question? Beyond a perfunctory "No one respects women more than I do," he has been completely unable to express even an iota of sympathy for what women go through every day, the way that harassment and unwanted advances are a reality of life for them. An ordinary politician would do that, or at least try, even if it wasn't sincere and someone had to explain to him how to go about it. But not Donald Trump.

It's ironic given the stunning frequency with which Trump lies about nearly everything, but with just a few weeks left in the campaign, we've learned more about him than nearly any contender for the presidency we've ever seen. It's not the details of his life and activities, though there are plenty of those to chew on. It's the very essence of the man, which he can't help but put on vivid display every time he opens his mouth.

For all we talk about "character" in campaigns, what we normally get is a carefully crafted version of character, in which the politician tries to convince us he's a better version of ourselves: in touch with the common folk and possessed of common sense, but also unusually kind and smart and courageous and competent and principled and possessed of every other virtue we could name. Trump, on the other hand, has shown us so many character flaws it's hard to keep track of them all. In the last year we've seen how he's petty, vindictive, impulsive, ignorant, cruel, and bigoted in a half-dozen ways. Not to mention, of course, a sexist creep.

Sometimes, when politician gets caught in a scandal, people express disbelief. He just wasn't the man I thought he was, they'll say. Who would have imagined? But no one is saying that about Trump. This is exactly how we thought he'd act.

Before he ran for president (or at least until he made himself into the country's most prominent birther), Trump was a comical but essentially benign figure: a preening narcissist, sure; a walking parody of nouveau-riche garishness, absolutely; but in the end seemingly not much more contemptible than a hundred other celebrities. But even if there are scandals yet to be revealed (and I'm pretty sure there are), by now we've come to know the real Donald Trump. And that, it turns out, is something truly loathsome.