Ignoring voters will destroy GOP

Donald Trump was not my first choice, as a Republican, to be our next president.

Even after I endorsed him when he had won the primaries, I was fully aware of the potential turmoil that lie ahead in the general election. But Donald Trump did win the battle for the nomination — a fact of life.

If party leaders thumb their nose at Republican voters whose candidate won the primaries, they will destroy the Republican Party, not Trump.

The choice is not between Donald Trump and a better candidate. It is a choice between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

The crude sexual references made 11 years ago in a private conversation were appalling, but they’re nowhere near as appalling as the record of corruption and abusive sexual behavior by the Clintons when they occupied the White House. Hillary did not address that issue when confronted with it in Sunday’s debate, except for saying it’s all false.

Hers was not an acceptable response, but it’s typical. Hillary Clinton will drive us into an historic abyss.

That my good friend Paul Ryan panicked after the Democratic attack on Trump’s past crudeness doesn’t speak to the House speaker’s level of leadership. This episode represents a deeper problem in the Republican Party.

The GOP elite feels compelled to undermine the candidate who represents the more conservative wing of the party. I saw this same thing happening with Ronald Reagan when he ran for governor the first time and again when he ran for president.

Like Reagan, Trump is the best leader to take on the primary threat to America’s security. Only now, the threat is radical Islamic terrorism.

The Middle East, where Christians and minority believers face extinction at the hands of these genocidal savages, has been given scant attention in the debates. Instead, our media are preoccupied with Trump’s decade- old sexual misbehavior.

Speaker Ryan admonished us to focus only on our re- election. A congressman’s job is more than that. It is also to look out for the interests of America.