Los Angeles Times (Editorial)
March 2, 2016
Donald
Trump is not fit to be president of the United States. Many people have
said it — politicians of both parties, economists, pundits, business
leaders — but millions
of GOP primary voters don't seem to be listening. Much of the
Republican base has taken leave of its senses, a flight blamed
alternately on inchoate anger, disgust with inside-the-Beltway
candidates and misplaced affection for a plain-speaking cartoon
character
who often seems to utter whatever nonsense comes into his head.
Regardless of the reason for his popularity, the bombastic billionaire
continued his soon-to-be unstoppable march toward the nomination
Tuesday, racking up resounding victories in primaries across
the American South and in the Northeast.
The
reality is that Trump has no experience whatsoever in government,
interacting with the machinery of state only as a supplicant. He has
shamefully little knowledge
of the issues facing the country and the world, and a temperament
utterly unsuited to the job. He is a racist and a bully, a demagogue. He
has proposed killing the families of terrorists, a violation of
international law so blatant that a former CIA director
predicted that U.S. troops would refuse to carry out such an order.
He
mocked a disabled person at a campaign rally. He has vowed to reinstate
waterboarding and forms of torture that are “much worse.” He intends to
seize and deport 11
million people living in the U.S. illegally. He would bar all Muslims
from entering the country until further notice. He would “open up our
libel laws” so that news organizations are punished for writing critical
“hit” pieces. He wants to build a wall along
the entire Mexican border, on the fantastical premise that he could
force the Mexican government to pay for it. He has threatened to start
trade wars with two of the country’s biggest trading partners, Mexico
and China, by slapping on the kind of protectionist
tariffs that U.S. leaders have been trying for decades to eliminate
worldwide.
Often
enough he says nothing at all, promising to replace Obamacare, for
instance, with “something great” or assuring listeners vaguely that a
winner such as himself —
someone who never tires of telling the world he’s rich, successful and
famous — will make it all work out one way or another.
It
isn't easy to tell how much of Trump's performance is merely shtick and
how much is real. In the aftermath of his victories Tuesday, Trump
struck a less adversarial
tone and talked about how he was “becoming diplomatic.” Yet at the same
time, he said this of House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), one of
several GOP leaders who suggested Trump hadn’t disavowed an endorsement
by former KKK leader David Duke forcefully enough:
“Paul Ryan, I don’t know him well, but I’m sure I’m going to get along
great with him. And if I don’t, he’s going to have to pay a big price,
OK?” That’s about as diplomatic a message as a dead fish wrapped in
newspaper.
We
hope we won't have to learn who the real Donald J. Trump might be. Not
that we find much to like about his Republican opponents, with whom we
disagree sharply on issues
that include climate change, environmental protection, healthcare and
reproductive rights. In fact, on issues where it’s possible to discern
where Trump stands, his views are more moderate at times than those of
his principal GOP rivals. And in their zeal
to slow Trump’s momentum, some have begun sinking to the Donald’s level
as a campaigner, slinging personal insults (at times vulgar ones)
instead of focusing on the problems with his record and his campaign.
Nevertheless, those candidates are more rational,
knowledgeable, understandable and predictable — all of which are
necessary (albeit not sufficient) qualities in the Oval Office. Trump’s
blustery temperament and authoritarian notion of the presidency are
unique in the field and uniquely disqualifying.
Trump’s
popularity may simply be the product of a toxic brew of a polarized
two-party system and nihilistic tactics on the campaign trail and
Capitol Hill (such as shutting
down the government and threatening to default on U.S. debts) that,
either by design or in effect, have convinced many Americans that their
government is irreparably broken and corrupt. But Trump isn’t the answer
— he’s just a cynical manipulator playing on
the very real frustrations of voters tired of a government that takes
big, difficult problems and makes them intractable. Those voters still
have time to choose a better standard-bearer.
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