By
Walter Brasch
The bully of the playground continued to
be in the media spotlight and charging ahead to the Republican nomination for
president.
In the 11th Republican debate, Donald
Trump, bold and arrogant as always, kept up the attack against his three
remaining opponents. To the man who once delighted in being called The Donald,
Sen. Ted Cruz was “Lyin’ Ted,” a reference he made more than just a few times. However,
several political fact checkers over the past three months have dismissed
Trump’s claims as little more than half-truths, exaggerations, and lies. Politifacts,
which checks candidate statements, revealed that about three-fifths of what
Trump said during the campaign are incorrect. Among
some of the errors Trump has made are that some of the families of the 9/11
suicide crews were in the U.S. prior to taking the lives of almost 3,000; that
five detainees at Guantanamo Base, Cuba, whom Obama released were back on the
battle field attacking Americans; that Mexico sent its citizens, especially
criminals, into the U.S.; that the U.S., under the nuclear ban treaty with
Iran, would be required to defend that nation if there was an attack by Israel;
and that several polls show him ahead of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Several times
over the past two decades, Trump has flip-flopped on issues, and then later claimed he hadn’t.
Sen. Marco Rubio, said Trump during the
debate, was “the little man.” Rubio, however, got in a penetrating remark about
Trump’s small size of his hands possibly being the size of another part of his
body. There was no fact-checker present to verify if Rubio was accurate on that
statement.
Sens. Cruz and Rubio, both far-right
conservatives and political rivals, have banded together to denounce Trump,
each hoping for the Republican nomination, each facing a storm of Trump’s
blustering that has led voters to place him firmly in command of getting that
nomination.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich, more moderate than each
of his three rivals and sharper on foreign policy than them, has tried to
remain above the bickering, but the debate and the campaign have deteriorated
into little more than a bar room brawl, with name-calling dominating a voice on
issues and Trump, Cruz, and Rubio interrupting and talking over each one numerous
times. In contrast to the Democrats’ debates, which focused upon issues, this
one in Detroit was more like a heated session of TV’s “The View” than a true
debate, with Trump’s profanity-laced debate points duplicating his
profanity-laced campaign speeches.
A few hours before whatever the
Republicans wanted to call it, Mitt Romney, the Republicans’ nominee for
president in 2012, called Trump a phony and a fraud. “If Donald Trump’s plans
were ever implemented, the country would sink into prolonged recession,” said
Romney who argued that Trump’s proposal of a 35 percent tariff-like penalties “would
instigate a trade war and that would raise prices for consumers, kill our
export jobs and lead entrepreneurs and businesses of all stripes to flee
America.”
Turning to foreign
policy, Romney plainly stated, “If we Republicans choose Donald
Trump as our nominee, the prospects for a safe and prosperous future are
greatly diminished.” Romney said that Trump, who believes he’s “very, very
smart,” is not “very, very smart.” In response, Trump numerous times before,
during, and after the mock-debate called Romney a loser, adding that Romney’s campaign was a
“catastrophe” and “an election that should have been won by the Republicans.”
One part of Trump’s not
so smart knowledge of the issues was when he declared he could save $300
billion from the federal budget solely by a regulation of drug prices, an
outlandish claim with no substance. However, there have been numerous examples,
other than his demeanor, of Trump not being qualified to become the president.
Although he blares
constantly about his $10 billion bank roll and how smart he is as a businessman
and entrepreneur, while refusing to release any documents to substantiate his
business income, Trump has declared bankruptcy of properties four times.
Several of his companies—among them Trump Airlines and Trump College—have
failed.
Before his
campaign Trump ostentatiously claimed that President Obama was born in Kenya
not Hawaii and questioning Obama’s right of the presidency. The truth, upheld
by newspaper notations, a birth certificate, and the federal courts, proved
Trump and the “birther movement” wrong, but yet they have been consistent in
throwing out their nonsense. He claimed that Sen. John McCain, subjected to torture by the North
Vietnamese, was not fit to be president because of that imprisonment. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who
weren’t captured,” said Trump.
During the campaign, Trump
mocked New York Daily News reporter
Serge Kovaleski’s muscular disorder; he mocked Hillary Rodham Clinton’s appearance.
He has unleashed
numerous policy proposals, most of which have little foundation of reality.
He has repeatedly
stated that if he was president he would build a wall between the U.S. and
Mexico, and require Mexico to build that wall. However, he never addresses how
he will get Mexico to fund that 2,000 mile wall. He has claimed that President
Obama plans to allow about 250,000 Muslims from Syria to emigrate to the U.S.,
a claim that is about 11 times larger than reality. More important he doesn’t
publicly look at the expense of additional border patrol agents and staff to
patrol that wall, or how to keep illegal immigrants from tunneling under the
wall, or going around the wall by boat or air, especially since he has proposed
no new budget for the Coast Guard.
He now says he had
spoken out against invading Iraq after the 9/11 attack, but the facts are clear
that he never supported going into Iraq. He claims he has seen thousands of
Muslims on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River cheering when the planes
from Al-Qaeda, but again, experts and eyewitnesses dispute those claims.
He says he wants a
moratorium on all Muslims entering the United States, which is allowable under
the Constitution, but doesn’t negate innumerable arguments of the logic or
morality of banning those who pose no threat to the U.S. nor why he is singling
out one religion other than the fact that some radicalized Muslims, less than
.001 percent of the 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, pose any clear and
present danger. He also doesn’t address how to fund an increase in the number
of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and staff to enforce stricter
immigration rules set by executive decree.
He was slow to renounce
the endorsement of David Duke, former hrand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
Although he viciously
attacks his last three opponents, he has thin skin. When anyone challenges his
opinions for any reason he bellows back in superheated hyperbolic attacks. When
Fox News anchor Megan Kelly posed tough questions to him, his response was to
refuse to show up for a debate that she later hosted. This past week he dropped
out of as a speaker at the Conservative Political Action Committee meeting,
unwilling to accept the few boos and jeers that would surely be sent to him,
and not needing C-PAC for support.
Several Republican
leaders have spoken against Trump; many conservative talk show hosts agree,
hoping for a Cruz or Rubio nomination. But this time they are solidly in the
minority as Trump, using a $100 million campaign of misinformation, has
unleashed his inner soul of demagoguery upon voters, to make them believe that
a billionaire is just like a lower middle-class citizen who does go to bars,
has a few drinks and sometimes engages in verbal profanity to argue his
position.
If the Republicans have
a contested convention or if Trump has captured enough delegate votes to be the
nominee it could mean a continuing decline of the Republican party that would
diminish the prospects to retain their Congressional majority and also affect
local races.
[Dr. Brasch is an award-winning
journalist, professor emeritus of mass communications, and author of 21 books,
His latest book is Fracking
America: Sacrificing Health and the Environment for Short-Term Economic Benefit.
The book is available through www.greeleyandstone.com or amazon.com]
