CONNOR HOFFMAN
Staff Writer
As a registered Republican, it greatly angers me that someone as ignorant and cruel as Donald J. Trump is currently my party’s frontrunner. Trump, the epitome of everything wrong with wealthy businessmen, is not only the most ignorant candidate in the GOP field right now but also is so far from what my party used to stand for.
The Republican Party is the main party in this country that stands for small government and morals, and The Donald couldn’t be any further away from these very ideals the GOP has fought for time after time.
According to the latest NBC poll, Trump currently has 29 percent approval in Iowa and 28 percent approval in New Hampshire. It is astonishing that such an ignorant and angry man is currently beating 16 other more qualified – and more tolerant – candidates.
Since presidency is such an important position, the media makes it its goal to ask all of the candidates tough questions to see how a prospective president would deal with the issues.
At the first GOP debate hosted by Fox News on Aug. 6, one of the moderators, Megyn Kelly, asked Trump about his abysmal history towards women.
“You’ve called women you don’t like ‘fat pigs, dogs, and disgusting animal[s]’… how will you answer the charge from Hillary Clinton … likely to be the Democratic nominee, that you are part of the war on women,” asked Kelly.
Not only did Trump answer quite ignorantly with the quip “only Rosie O’Donnell,” but he retorted with “I’ve been very nice to you, although I could probably not be, based on the way you have treated me.” This is truly astounding that a serious presidential candidate not only publicly insulted someone but also threatened Kelly for asking him a tough question.
As if that wasn’t enough, he then went to war on Twitter with Kelly the following week, insinuating that the reason she asked that question was because she was on her period. This is not only a shallow reply to this but an extremely childish one as well.
According to a CNN poll conducted on Aug. 18, 63 percent of women have an unfavorable opinion of Trump. In other words, six out of 10 women do not like Trump at all and would not vote for him.
Also, if Trump’s war on women is not enough, he is leading a quite unpopular war on our neighbor Mexico.
At his campaign announcement at the Trump Tower in New York City, The Donald said in his announcement speech, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems to us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re bringing rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
According to CNN, part of Trump’s plan for immigration is the premise that we not only build a huge border wall between us and Mexico, but also that Mexico is going to pay for said wall. Another huge part of his plan is to forcefully kick out all current illegal immigrants and their children.
A Pew Research Center poll conducted on May 18 found that 72 percent of Americans support the idea of allowing some way for illegal Mexican immigrants to stay, with 42 percent believing they should be able to apply for citizenship, and 26 percent believing they should be able to apply for permanent residency.
This message of ignorance and hatred is not what the GOP stands for, and us Republicans must do everything in our power to stop The Donald from not only spreading his message, but also ruining the name of our party. We must start asking him the tough questions that Kelly did and expose him for the liar and racist that he is. Us voters should do everything in our power to assure he does not even make it past the first primary.
The first primary is the Iowa caucus on Feb. 1. The GOP must do everything to stop him from even getting close to winning the Iowa caucus, and the media should start showing the true side of Trump and not just giving airtime to his uncultured and childish antics. With all of the great candidates we have, The GOP has a chance to nominate a serious candidate and win in 2016. To do so, first we must axe out Trump from our primary.