No Laughing Matter

One thing is clear about this election campaign: Donald Trump does not have the qualities of a decent human being, much less those required to be president of the United States, and today’s Republican Party is more concerned about taking over the government than about the country’s welfare.

While some voices within the GOP and among conservative pundits have been raised against a Trump candidacy, the party has begun to fall into line behind the man with the funny hair and neo-fascist bluster. Even Ted Cruz, who called Trump a “pathological liar,” refused to say he would not support Trump if he became the GOP standard bearer in the presidential race. The GOP uber alles!

The first step on the path to Trump was taken well before this campaign. It began by Mitch McConnell in 2010 when he declared that the GOP’s top priority was to limit Obama’s presidency to one term. Not to legislate for the good of the nation, mind you, but to prevent a second term for Obama when his first term had barely gotten off the ground!

That “priority” sowed the seeds for the obstructionism by Congressional Republicans, which in turn led to popular discontent with “Washington” — or, its synonym, “the establishment.”

And so along comes “The Donald,” a bull in the China shop of politics. No candidate has ever appeared to be more “anti-establishment” than this heir to a real estate fortune. Do we care that he’s one of the one-percent? That he’s all slogans and no substance? Nah. He hates “the establishment;” that’s good enough for us. In an interview with a Trump supporter after he had delivered one of his trademark tirades, she was reminded that much of what he said was not true. Her response? “Yes… but he’ll get things done.”

In the Democratic corner, the same nationwide discontent that underpins Trump’s rise has also given the Sanders campaign a heft to the left, which surprised everyone — probably even the senator himself. But while the two campaigns have been built on discontent, there’s a big difference between them. Trump’s campaign is one of xenophobia, isolationism, racism, sexism, and even anti-intellectualism. Sanders, on the other hand, in his role in Congress and in his campaign for the Democratic nomination, stands firmly on the side of middle- and workingclass Americans.

So here we are, in a campaign that is giving the GOP fits, causing sharp splits among the American people, and frightening foreign leaders who fear the damage a Trump presidency would do internationally.

It is imperative that unity against Trump must be swift and strong — and that includes independents as well as Republicans who care more about their country than they do about their party.