Thread: Despite what Donald Trump says, Americans are better than this

Despite what Donald Trump says, Americans are better than this
By Editorial Board December 23, 2015

OVER THE past weeks we have used some sharp words in our editorials about the race for the Republican nomination — words such as bigot, bully and buffoon. Some readers have asked whether by so doing we undermine our own calls for civil discourse. The answer has a lot to do with this moment in American history — a dangerous moment when something ugly is taking place in the political arena. It’s a time that demands a sharp and clear response from everyone who cares about fairness and decency, democracy and tolerance.

Generally the system works best when people assume that their political opponents are acting in good faith. We may feel strongly about gun laws, campaign finance or free trade, but we recognize that there are defensible arguments on the other side. In the heat of the debate, we sometimes fall short of our aspirations, but as U.S. politics become ever more partisan, it becomes ever more important to give opposing views a fair hearing. That’s one reason we publish a range of opinions on the facing page, especially ones that differ from our own.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...94b_story.html


But Donald Trump and his imitators present a different kind of challenge to democratic discourse, in at least three ways. Mr. Trump, the leading candidate for the Republican nomination, seeks to make his political fortune not by staking out and defending positions but by fanning and exploiting hatred and fear. He says and repeats things that are demonstrably false, which makes a mockery of legitimate debate. He prefers to insult, demean and ridicule anyone who challenges him rather than to engage meaningfully with their arguments.

The essence of his campaign has been to portray those who are different from him and his supporters as unworthy, less than human and so deserving of abuse. His incendiary language associates Mexicans with rapists and Muslims with terrorists. The demonization then is used to justify the unjustifiable: mass deportations for undocumented immigrants, torture for suspected terrorists, bombing enemies’ innocent relatives, barring all Muslims, beating up an African American protester.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) follows a similar playbook when he asserts, falsely, that immigration reform aimed at bringing undocumented immigrants out of the shadows would have given President Obama the authority to admit “ISIS terrorists.” Even his ostensibly humorous reference to “undocumented Democrats” serves to dehumanize. The Salvadoran woman worrying whether her children have done their homework as she works the night shift at a fast-food restaurant is no longer a person trying to give her kids a better life but a political token, deserving of no sympathy. It is legitimate to debate the proper level of immigration, but that’s not Mr. Cruz’s goal. When he echoes the segregationist Alabama governor George Wallace in his denunciation of a path to legalization, he is making a very different kind of argument.

We are told that Mr. Trump’s ugliness has found an audience because Americans are resentful and afraid. Globalization and technological change have left many behind. Rapid immigration has made some feel like strangers in their own country. After the shootings in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., some wonder whether their government can keep them safe. Each of these issues could and should be addressed in a presidential campaign. It is Mr. Trump’s noxious choice to conflate all three without offering real solutions to any of them.

What is the right way to respond, and who is the right audience? Mr. Trump believes in nothing other than his own aggrandizement. Mr. Cruz is not going to let principle or conviction, if he has any, stand between him and his ambition. They are not the readers we have in mind when we write. It would be nice if Republican leaders who know the Trump message is un-American but have been too timid to speak out would rise to this occasion, but it seems we can’t count on that, either.

No, the audience that matters at this moment is all of the rest of us — Americans who know that our country is better than Mr. Trump and Mr. Cruz understand. Our history can be read as the continuing struggle, not always successful, of a fractious people to overcome prejudice and division and build a stronger, fairer nation. We overcame demagogues on race to carry out a civil rights agenda that responded, imperfectly, to the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. We have overcome apostles of isolationism to defend democracy and freedom. Repeatedly we overcame ethnic mistrust to welcome immigrants into the fold and see them become the backbone of society.

Today many may be fearful of terrorists, immigration or losing ground economically. But most of us realize that demonizing others won’t solve problems. Mr. Trump is running the campaign of a bigot, a bully and a buffoon. It seems to us it’s worth saying so, if only to make clear that we also know we can do better.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...94b_story.html

We are just seeing a small fraction of the mud slinging that will be thrown out in the next year.

The Washington Post, Megyn Kelly, and Glenn Beck are obsessed with trying to ruin Donald Trump!

W

Originally Posted by Judy

Mr. Trump, the leading candidate for the Republican nomination, seeks to make his political fortune not by staking out and defending positions but by fanning and exploiting hatred and fear. He says and repeats things that are demonstrably false, which makes a mockery of legitimate debate. He prefers to insult, demean and ridicule anyone who challenges him rather than to engage meaningfully with their arguments.

That's a good description of pretty much all political dialogue these days.

Americans are far better than what the Washington Post believes we are, which is why so many of US support Donald Trump. We want our country fixed, and he wants to fix it. Everyone else just wants to dance around, scheme and deceive, promise one thing in public another in private. It's disgusting what's going on, and Trump is the only one who cares enough about our people and country to stand up and tell it like it is. None of his positions are racist, bigotry, hateful or fearful. They are legitimate solutions to real problems, stopping illegal immigration and reducing legal immigration, fixing our trade deals, doing something better with the tax code, securing our borders, deporting illegal aliens and halting Muslim immigration until we need it for some reason and after there's a proper vetting system to ensure terrorists and radicals don't come in.

Why would a newspaper let alone an editorial board have a problem with any of that?

What I don't understand about either newspaper or broadcast agencies focusing so much attention on the plight of refugees, immigrants, illegal aliens, poverty in other countries, and on and on and on instead of on our citizens. Why don't think send reporters into the ghettos of Chicago, New York, DC, Los Angeles, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Detroit and so many other cities and town across the country?

We have millions of Americans who have less than refugees and illegal aliens coming in to our country and the reason the Americans have less is because they can't find jobs that sustain them because we don't have enough jobs and when there are a few new ones, government policy hands those jobs off to the foreigners coming in.

How is wanting to correct that outrage "hatred and fear"? It's not hatred or fear, it's common sense, intelligence and loyalty to our own people.

Clearly, Americans are better than the Washington Post, our government, other media and most businesses who are selling US out to line their own pockets at the expense and demise of the United States. I'm shocked and very disappointed to see an editorial board of one our largest and used-to-be respected newspapers write articles like this. I'm sure you were told to write it by your owners, because no one with 2 live brain cells still connected and at least one ounce of honesty could have concocted such an article against Donald J Trump.

Trumps is in this race to expose all this crap, become President, and fix it. And at this point from my standpoint, anyone even trying to get in his way is someone who really doesn't care one hoot about our country or citizens.

There are wonderful comments after article if nobody's noticed (@1300)