Since the reality show that is the 2016 presidential election starts officially in a few weeks with the Iowa caucuses, the media are inundating the airwaves with poll after poll every time there’s a hair’s worth of change in any race. A new Quinnipiac poll showed us something a little different: Half of Americans, including 60 percent of women, would be “embarrassed” to have GOP front-runner Donald Trump as president.
(Only half? What are the rest smoking?)
“Half of American voters say they’d be embarrassed to have Donald Trump as their Commander in Chief, and most Americans think he doesn’t have a good chance in November, but there he is still at the top of the Republican heap,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. “Hillary Clinton tops him. Sen. Bernie Sanders hammers him and Sen. Ted Cruz is snapping at his heels. Can a candidate that half the American electorate thinks is an embarrassment win in November?”
Yet nearly half of Republicans — 44 percent! — say they would be “proud” of a President Trump. Proud of a candidate whose supporters dig in with their love each time he spews some new vitriol.
Every time the would-be narcissist-in-chief issues a new insult, the Trumpinistas in his crowds only cheer more loudly. At this point, he has insulted immigrants, refugees, disabled people, Muslims, prisoners of war, women, journalists, people of any color, candidates on both sides of the aisle — oh, heck, we’ve lost count. Will babies, hot dogs, and apple pie be next?
When another candidate nips at his heels, as Texas Sen. Ted Cruz seems to be doing, Trump lowers the bar even further to turn the attention back to himself. Recently, he made jokes about former Secretary of State Clinton’s bathroom habits and said she got “schlonged” by Barack Obama in 2008. Trump makes insults on the campaign trial that belong back in elementary school. Don’t forget that a USA Today analysis of Trump’s speech showed that he talks to voters on a fourth-grade level. No wonder most of his supporters are those with the least amount of education — the white, blue-collar workers who feel they’ve been shafted.
Of course, this kind of political approach did not emerge from a vacuum. Trump is only amplifying the hate speech — albeit more crudely — that has become too commonplace in today’s political discourse.
Given the vitriol that has been expressed by those on the right about President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama (images of witch doctors, monkeys, nooses, “Moo-chelle,” etc.) and the glee with which those memes are spread on social media, we shouldn’t be surprised by Trump’s hate-filled, sophomoric words and images. And those phrases and images aren’t just coming from right-wing pundits, columnists, Facebook, and Twitter — they’re coming from elected Republican officials at nearly every level, from congressmen down to local school board members.
NBC News presidential historian Michael Beschloss was on The Rachel Maddow Show to discuss the level to which Trump’s presidential discourse has sunk, and he said it was unprecedented.
“I think it`s pretty much going into new territory here, especially because you know in some cases you have Donald Trump saying this to people’s faces. … You know, what are these debates going to be like if he is nominated and he’s debating with Hillary Clinton and saying these things face to face in the context of a presidential debate? We’ve never seen or heard anything like this.”
He did, however, see some parallels with Alabama Gov. George Wallace, who ran as an independent candidate in 1968, mainly on a racist platform. “At Wallace’s rallies, sometimes, he would denounce a particular reporter who was right there in the press gallery and all these heads would turn and people would worry for the guy’s safety.”
Beschloss tweeted later: “There is no record that George Washington used the word ‘schlonged.’ ”
Politifact, which rates politicians’ statements on how true they are, recently awarded its 2015 Lie of the Year award to the Trump campaign. It wasn’t just one statement — there were too many to choose from. It was his entire campaign as a whole, which issues falsehood after falsehood: 76 percent received ratings of false, mostly false, or “Pants on Fire.”
All of which are eaten up and regurgitated by Trump worshipers nationwide. Good luck, America. And God bless us, every one.