MORE AND MORE PEOPLE ADMIT THAT A TRUMP PRESIDENCY WOULD BE RISKY

…The Post’s Ruth Marcus

 

Admitting that Trump would be bad for America, is it becoming a trend?

 

Everybody usually likes to be right, but this is one time I wish my statements from about seven months ago were wrong.

 

At the time, right after Donald Trump had declared that he was going to run for president, I along with many others said that I didn’t think he would last long in a campaign.  But I also said that similar comments had been made when Ronald Reagan first ran for president.  I remember ending the article saying that, “We’d probably better be careful about what we think.”

 

Oops, I was obviously more than just right.

 

It is also looking like others that didn’t think that Trump was that bad of a choice, they are also starting to change their mind.

 

One of those individuals was a writer for which I have a lot of personal respected.  That individual is Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post.  Ruth actually has been a writer for The Post even before she had completed her JD Law Degree at Harvard Law School.

 

I always have respect for any writers that will actually admit that they may have made a mistake, and Ruth has always done that, even though she hasn’t had to do it very often.

 

This time Ruth confessed that some time ago as she put it, “…in pondering the ghastly parlor game of choosing between President Donald Trump and President Ted Cruz, I opted — reluctantly, disbelievingly — for Trump, as the lesser of two dangers.”

 

She went on to say, “Yes, the real estate tycoon is a know-nothing, uninterested-in-learning-anything buffoon. Also: a demagogue and a bully whose emotional instability would pose a threat to national security.

 

But the Cruz alternative, it seemed to me then, was even worse. Cruz is smarter than Trump, more calculating than Trump (which is saying something) and way, way more conservative than Trump.”

 

But I also agree that at the time, (7-8 months ago) I also thought as she did that Trump did offer the possibility of someone that could be a deal maker, especially in the areas of free-trade.  He would also not be the Tea Party darling that is expected of Ted Cruz.

 

But now I agree with Ruth that since the primaries have started, “Trump has proved himself to be even less knowledgeable and even more unhinged. His election would constitute a grave threat to American values and, potentially, American democracy.”

 

I also never thought that I would be agreeing with Senator Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) that picking between Trump and Cruz is like choosing between “being shot or poisoned. What does it really matter?”  But now, Senator Graham is also saying that Trump is even more dangerous than Cruz.

 

Ms. Marcus wrote about Senator Graham. “like me, [Graham] has come to the unexpected conclusion that…. “We may be in a position where we have to rally around Ted Cruz as the only way to stop Donald Trump,” Graham told this to CBS News’s Charlie Rose as the Super Tuesday returns rolled in.

 

Charlie Rose then asked Graham about the comment that because Cruz is disliked by all the other US Senators,  “the safest place to murder Cruz would be on the Senate floor?”  Senator Graham responded with: “I can’t believe I would say yes, but yes.”

 

Even with all this, both Ms. Marcus and I agree that giving the reins of government to Trump would offer the most risk, exposing the country to more long-lasting danger than a Supreme Court with multiple Cruz nominees.

 

Compared to Cruz, Trump shows no respect or knowledge of constitutional and legal limitations.  He makes his declarations of what he would do as president, never admitting that as he would not be a King or dictator, he would actually have to deal with the US Congress and the US Supreme Court.

 

Trump wants to open the libel laws, undo limits imposed by the First Amendment and to make it easier to sue media outlets that dare to criticize Trump.  (Kinda sounds like a dictator to me.)

 

He continues to threaten those that donate to his opponents.

 

Trump’s questionable temperament has raised concerns by people such as former CIA director Michael Hayden’s suggestion of what about an order — issued in a fit of pique against a foreign critic — that is lawful but crazy?

 

Ruth thinks that, “Trump is [Richard] Nixon with all of the megalomaniacal willingness to abuse power and none of the crafty realpolitik. He is attracted to strongmen, past and present — unapologetically retweeting a Mussolini quote and basking in praise of him from Vladimir Putin.”

 

Of the Republican speaker of the House, Paul D. Ryan (Wis.), Trump said menacingly, on the night of his Super Tuesday victories, “I’m sure I’m going to get along great with him, and if I don’t, he’s going to pay a big price.”

 

And this is just a short list of the outrageous things that Trump has said or proposed.

 

So I would end this article with what Ruth ended her article with: “Suffice it to say that, if Trump is elected, Ryan isn’t the only American who might have to pay a price.”

 

Hear, hear………..

 

Copyright G.Ater  2016