Democrats must take on the task of halting Trump bigotry
It is tragic for our country, but the Republican Party cannot stop Donald Trump. Ever since Trump rode the escalator down into bigotry at his announcement speech last year, he has shot up in the polls with the base that votes in Republican primaries. He will have to be stopped by the Democratic candidate, a responsibility we must accept.
This was predictable, as the Republican Party has encouraged bigotry and ignorance as a political strategy at least since Nixon and the “southern strategy.” It got more ugly after we Democrats had the presumption to elect an African-American as our president, twice.
I disagree with Republican positions on many issues, but I don’t think bigotry is a “conservative” issue. The lack of any discernible “conservative” policy positions by Trump, however, has demonstrated the tremendous power of bigotry within the Republican voting base. Strong pluralities of Republican voters just don’t seem to care about small government, fiscal conservatism or Evangelical Christian positions, just as long as he feeds their bigotry.
With our rich historical, cultural and economic ties to Mexico, you might think New Mexico Republicans could do a little better opposing Trump. Yet, our Republican governor can’t very well lecture her party’s base about bigotry after attacking Latino immigrant families in our communities for the past six years. Just last January, her organization was filling the airwaves with false statements about immigrants in order to make us all scared and resentful.
What New Mexican had ever heard of Susana Martinez before she rose to prominence on the poll-tested idea of attacking immigrants over “dangerous” driver’s licenses? She was catapulted into office based on bigotry against immigrants. She became so obsessed with the issue that senior Republicans in the Senate finally had to join with Democrats to save New Mexico from continued divisiveness.
Gov. Martinez’s Republican hope, Marco Rubio, has already been chased from the presidential field. Republicans like Martinez, who have used bigotry in their political strategies, are in no position to stop him now.
Republicans cannot control the candidate of bigotry that they created. If they try at their convention, Trump has promised rioting. Once again, it will be up to Democrats in November to stop bigotry in our national life.