Did Dukakis ever say anything that sensible? I’m amazed.
That famous saying is most often attributed to Plutarch. Hamilton, Jefferson, and Truman were all big Plutarch fans.
“They just don’t come any better than old Plutarch,” President Harry Truman told biographer Merle Miller after he’d left office. “He knew more about politics than all the other writers I’ve read put together.
In this context the saying means that Trump’s campaign is very nasty, so Trump’s supporters follow his lead. In my opinion it won’t work, but time will tell.
That’s a hell of a lot of gibberish. You could have just said yes, I’m a clown.