Bill Press: Why Trump must not be president
“OK, let’s end this comedy. No more Big Orange jokes. This madness has gone on long enough.”
OK, let’s end this comedy. No more Big Orange jokes. This madness has gone on long enough.
It’s time to stop pretending. There are not two serious contenders for president. There’s one candidate, Hillary Clinton, who’s not perfect, but who at least has the experience, intelligence and capacity to do the job. There’s another, Donald Trump, who shouldn’t even be on the ballot.
If you don’t believe it, go back and watch a rerun of the first debate. He blamed it on the microphone and the moderator, but no matter how many lame excuses he makes, Donald Trump proved once and for all why he doesn’t belong on the same stage with Hillary Clinton. She was everything he was not. She was prepared, he was not. She was cool, he was hot. She was substantive, he was shallow. She was polite, he was rude and obnoxious. She answered questions directly, he bobbed and weaved. She told the truth. And he lied.
He lied about not supporting the war in Iraq. He lied about not calling climate change a hoax invented by the Chinese. He lied about the success of stop-and-frisk. He lied about Hillary’s starting the birther movement. He lied about NATO’s role in fighting terrorism.
Along the way, he not only admitted to paying no federal income tax, at least for a few years. He bragged about it — “That was smart” — and defended it — “They would only have squandered it.” And, of course, he still refuses to release his tax returns, unlike every presidential candidate for the last 40 years. He acknowledged rooting for millions of Americans to lose their homes in the 2008 housing crisis because “That’s business.” And he didn’t deny routinely stiffing subcontractors and construction workers on his major building projects. Then there are all the other scary things Trump has proposed throughout the campaign. Granted, it’s difficult to know exactly where he stands on many issues. NBC News reports that Trump has made 117 distinct policy shifts on 20 major issues, including three different positions on abortion in one eighthour stretch. But this much we do know. On immigration. He pledges to round up and deport 11 million people who came to this country illegally and ban 1.6 billion Muslims from entering this country, simply because of their religion.
On the environment. Trump promises to “cancel the Paris climate agreement” on global warming, which he’s repeatedly called a hoax, and to rescind existing environmental regulations, including EPA’s new rules on coal-fired power plants.
On domestic policy. Trump would abolish Obamacare, leaving 18 million Americans who were able to acquire health insurance for the first time with — nothing. He’d establish a national policy of stop-and-frisk, already declared a racist practice by a New York federal court. And, contradicting his pledge to fight for the middle class, he’d initiate a new round of “trickle-down” tax cuts to further enrich the wealthiest Americans and add an estimated $10 trillion to the national debt. On foreign policy. He’s raised the possibility of pulling out of NATO. He supports letting Japan and South Korea acquire nuclear weapons. He’d cancel the recently negotiated Iran Nuclear Deal, which prevents Iran from developing a nuclear weapon for at least 15 years. He says he’d illegally seize Iraq’s oil. And he praises Vladimir Putin as his role model. This is the same man who was sued by the Justice Department for racial discrimination, who led the birther movement against President Obama for five years, who’s now being sued for defrauding students of Trump University, who started his campaign calling all Mexican immigrants “criminals” and “rapists,” and who has since engaged in ugly personal attacks against a Mexican-American judge, a Gold Star Muslim family, and, this week, the winner of his Miss Universe contest. Add it all up. Donald Trump’s not just wrong about everything. He’s dangerous. He’d undermine and undo everything this country stands for. He’s temperamentally unfit even to be a tourist at the White House, let alone occupy the Oval Office. Of course, it’s too late to dump this monster candidate the Republican Party has saddled us with. They can’t get him off the ticket, no matter how badly millions of Republicans would like to. The only solution now is for Donald Trump to get crushed so badly that after Nov. 8 he and his ilk disappear from the political scene forever.
Bill Press is syndicated by Tribune Media Services. Readers may write to him via email at bill@billpress.com.