By Alex George
I can’t believe I’m saying this; but I’ve come to accept that Donald Trump will be the Republican Party’s nomination to run for president of the United States.
It seems like over the past few months he’s said something that should derail his run for the White House, but every time he puts his foot in his mouth he not only stays in the race, but actually GAINS steam.
“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best…They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime. They’re rapists and some; I assume are good people….”
When Trump said this during his speech announcing his candidacy I laughed out loud. “What an idiot,” I thought, he’d shot himself in the foot before he even came out of the gate. He’d alienated the Latino demographic, the fastest growing ethnic group in America. I guess I’m the idiot because after his speech he surged in the polls. Still, I figured he’d be out if the race in just a couple of weeks and that he was just running so NBC would pick up “The Apprentice” again.
Then he said “[John McCain] is not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” at a Family Leadership Summit in Iowa in July.
“He really blew it this time.” I said naively. If there’s one thing the average American, let alone conservative, voter doesn’t appreciate, it’s speaking ill of veterans. John McCain, by the way, is 100 percent a war hero; he served as a pilot during the Vietnam War, was shot down and captured by the North Vietnamese Army, and was a “guest” at the infamous “Hanoi Hilton”, held as a prisoner of war from 1967 to 1973.
Meanwhile while all that was going on, Trump received several student and medical deferments for “heel spurs” (that when questioned later on he couldn’t remember which foot they occurred in) to keep from getting drafted. Not that trying to avoid the war was a bad thing to do, but talk about throwing stones in a glass house.
But to my surprise and amazement his numbers just kept ballooning upwards no matter what he said. He said that GOP debate moderator Megyn Kelly must have been on her period during a debate in August. He said that all Muslims should be banned from entering the United States, including on tourist and student visas. He honestly believes that a wall with Mexico, the tenth longest border on Earth, is not only feasible, but that the Mexican government will foot the bill.
I’ll be honest, I grew up in a city known for its liberalism, and although I don’t consider myself a true bleeding heart liberal and I’m definitely not a card carrying democrat, I still see things through blue tinted glasses. To me George W. Bush was a national embarrassment and one of the worst presidents in America’s history, but Donald Trump makes Dubya look like FDR. Bush was a goof and an inept statesman, but he’s not an idiot and he seems like the kind of guy I’d like to have a beer with (even if he is a Rangers fan). Trump on the other hand is a racist, sexist, xenophobic buffoon. We’re talking about a guy who once said that if his daughter, Ivanka Trump, wasn’t his daughter, perhaps he’d date her.
Normally I don’t worry too much about who the president is. To me the position is often times a public figurehead, while the real action is in the Capitol Building and on Wall Street. However if Trump were to actually come to power I worry about what a united Republican House and Senate with a maniac at the helm of the executive branch could do to this country. I worry about my undocumented friends and what their future is in this country. I worry about healthcare and fair wages for America’s poor. I worry about Donald Trump and Vladmir Putin beating their chests (perhaps literally) on the floor of the U.N., with the launch codes to 15,000 nuclear weapons.
But like I said before I’ve come to terms with it. Somehow, despite all odds, in the Bizzaro World that is the USA in 2016, Donald Trump is the frontrunner to be one of the major party’s nominations to run for president. You know, Donald Trump, the guy who says “Ya fired.” on that corny reality show.
What a time to be alive.
