2016 July 20^th

The Republican Party has officially declared Donald J. Trump their nominee for President of the United States. This is an historic event because Trump has never been elected to any other political position, nor indeed, has he ever run for any other political position. He has managed to defeat the many other aspirants for this honor largely from his prior TV fame, from the force of his personality and from his promises to “make America great again.”

He has cleverly taken advantage of the fact that people in the middle class and below have seen stagnating wages, job loss and grim prospects for much financial improvement. He has focused the anger of this group on immigrants and on trade treaties that he claimed has cost jobs. His rallies, attended by thousands, are carefully scripted, although Trump speaks from no script. He says only those things that draw applause and those phrases are often repeated over and over.

His plans are vague: he will build a wall along our southern border to keep out undesirables (read Latinos). He makes absurd claims that we are admitting thousands and thousands of Syrian immigrants with no examination of their background. No one holds him to account for these absurdities nor do they point out that his remedies are often unconstitutional. His rally audiences are delighted to listen to whichever bit of nonsense he produces to entertain them and draw their applause.

Unfortunately for Trump many Republicans see him accurately as the demagogue he is. Bill Kristol, the editor of the influential Weekly Standard, is straightforward, he says, “The GOP is in the grip of a vulgar demagogue.” Other high rollers in the Republican establishment are of the same mind. The list of prominent Republicans “unfortunately with other plans at the time of the Republican convention” could make for another Republican convention. The only previous Republican presidential nominee in attendance is Bob Dole and he believes that Trump should apologize to John McCain for refusing to call McCain a war hero. Senator Dole will have a long wait.

Trump has made it clear that he has no love for the Republican establishment and they return the favor. He is running his campaign on the cheap and it shows, Monday was an absolute debacle…from insulting Ohio’s Governor Kasich to the feeble attempts to draw attention away from poor Melania Trump’s sections of plagiarized speech. Now we have a low level staffer finally coming forward and claiming responsibility for the Melania disaster.

If Trump can’t run a convention without looking like an idiot how do we expect him to run the country? Why give him the chance?