‘Midnight Cowboy’ is wrong about Trump

I need to get something off my chest.

I truly admire Jon Voight’s work as an actor. He is a brilliant performer who can portray a male prostitute in “Midnight Cowboy” and President Franklin Roosevelt in “Pearl Harbor.”

However, he is mistaken in saying that Donald Trump is the greatest president since Abraham Lincoln.

What is this fellow seeing that others — such as yours truly — are missing?

Voight posted a two-part video to extol the virtues of Donald Trump. It includes this statement, according to CNN: “This job is not easy, for he’s battling the left and their absurd words of destruction,” Voight, 80, said. “Our nation has been built on the solid ground from our forefathers, and there is a moral code of duty that has been passed on from President Lincoln.”

A “moral code of duty”? Voight seems to believe that Trump follows a “moral code” in the conduct of his office. My . . . goodness!

I’ve never detected any form of “moral code” to which the president is faithful. The only “code” he appears to follow stems from whatever is in his best interest, whatever serves his brand, whatever boosts his poll numbers.

Don’t misunderstand me. I will continue to watch Voight’s work. I am able to separate his politics from his art. Indeed, I don’t watch films in which Jon Voight appears because or in spite of his political persuasion. I watch his films because he’s a marvelous actor.

I do not hold his political views against him, any more than I hold Clint Eastwood’s right-leaning politics against him, or the politics of, say, the late John Wayne or the late Charlton Heston against them.

As much as I admire Jon Voight’s work as an actor, I just believe — contrary to his view — that Donald Trump is going to rank as one of the worst presidents in our nation’s history. At almost every level this guy has managed to shred the presidency’s time-honored institutions.

I happen to believe in decorum and dignity in the office. How in the world can anyone — even an early supporter of Trump such as Jon Voight — believe he has conducted himself with any semblance of dignity while protecting the decorum associated with his high office?

There. I feel better now. I don’t want anyone to believe that I won’t spend money on a Jon Voight movie in the future. I just don’t consider his views of Donald Trump to be anywhere near the truth.