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I promise you, unless something monumental concerning his campaign happens next week, I will try to not write something about Donald Trump. But he’s just the gift that keeps on giving.
Although, this week, you could say that I’m not necessarily taking aim at Trump himself, rather something that he said and the reaction to it.
About a week ago, Trump was campaigning in New Hampshire and speaking about the relationship between Marco Rubio (senator, Florida) and Jeb Bush (governor, Florida). Trump told a story involving Rubio saying he wouldn’t run against Bush because Bush is his mentor.
Of course, Rubio and Bush are now in contention with one another – against Trump as well – to become president. Trump punctuated his remarks by saying that what Rubio did is disloyal and that their relationship is “bull****.”
(I’m assuming that most of you have a wide enough vocabulary to imagine what the ‘****’ means.) I’m going to be honest, I actually don’t care that Trump swore. Yeah, it’s not presidential in the least and it’s incredibly unprofessional. So what? Nothing Trump has done this far has been what I would consider to be presidential.
Who I want to take aim at are the people who were personally offended by this remark. If you look up the clip on YouTube you can hear a small murmur of disapproval at the rally when Trump says the word, followed by applause drowning out the murmur.
I want to take aim at those murmurers, because while not necessarily hypocritical, they do have their opinions a little backwards. First, let’s get it out of the way that I don’t understand why anyone would want to be at a Donald Trump rally in the first place.
Now that that’s out of the way, this incident of above-mild profanity is one of the least offensive things Trump has said. Consider all the things that he’s said about Mexicans, women, and his generally abrasive approach to the press core.
Now think for a moment that these people who were offended by this curse word. They are the people who were somehow dedicated enough and endorse Trump enough to show up at one of his rallies to support all of the hateful and boastful things that he had said in the past, but when he swears? Well that’s way too far!
It’s sort of indicative of a greater problem with the GOP. It’s a party of paradoxes. It’s the party that says things like we should listen to Pope Francis, but when Pope Francis speaks out against climate change they cry that he should leave things to the scientists.
Then, they question the scientists who say that global warming exists. This whole Trump situation is indicative of a larger problem with the GOP. You can disparage Mexicans, but you can’t say a curse word. You can act boorish and terrible towards women, but you can’t say that global warming exists.
Yeah, Democrats aren’t perfect either, but they don’t make it so easy. Say what you will about Bernie Sanders’s politics, whether you agree with him or not, he’s at least consistent. With Republicans there are so many things that come across as hypocritical because the boundaries shift with their base.
The GOP seems so separated. You have moderate conservatives, those people who say they’re only economic conservatives and have no social agenda, the Religious Right, the Tea Party and all of those who fall between.
If ever this party needed a figure to pull everyone together, the time is now.
Brian Laughran
Editor-in-Chief
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