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Mike Hendricks

Mike at Night

Mike Hendricks recently retires as social science, criminal justice instructor at McCook Community College.

Opinion

The anti-trump campaign

Friday, March 11, 2016

Establishment Republicans are falling all over each other trying to be more anti-Trump then the next person. It's almost like a letter went out to all of them detailing the points to use against someone most Republican traditionalists call an outsider who isn't submissive and dictated to by the core principles of the Republican Party. No less than Mitt Romney, the Republican Presidential Candidate in the last election, recorded a video detailing why he opposes Trump and why other like-minded Republicans should too.

I've been involved in politics in some way, shape, or fashion most of my life and I've never seen an election season like this one. Trump has led the polls since the first one was taken long before the Iowa caucuses but the Republican insiders laughed at him and discounted him as a flash in the pan for far too many polling cycles. When they finally realized he wasn't going to go away, the attacks started coming but many people believe they came too late. I actually felt sorry for Florida Senator Marco Rubio when he resorted to nothing short of playground antics in his attempt to discredit Trump in last week's debate. He later said his remarks about Trump embarrassed his children. Of course they embarrassed his children because they embarrassed a lot of people. We've never seen or heard this kind of juvenile trash talk in a presidential campaign before and here's hoping we never hear it again. It's gutter language and it doesn't ever belong on a debate stage but it seems like those guys just couldn't help themselves.

Trump has tapped into an anger held by many Republicans and even a few Democrats that runs deep and cold. And their anger revolves around race, sex, gender and other hot-button topics like illegal immigration, same-sex marriage, abortion, and gun rights. Of course Trump says people should not worry because he'll solve all these problems once he's elected plus many more like regaining our natural place of being the leader of the world.

The opposition to him comes not only from politicians of his party from this country but from all around the world. Max Hastings reported in "The Daily Mail" that "Europeans are appalled and bewildered because it looks like the Republican presidential nomination is going to be won by a lying, racist billionaire who wants to start a jihad against Muslims and a trade war with China."

He goes on to say that Trump supporters turn to him in their bitterness and frustration and he will never tell them "that he can do no more to reverse a historic industrial shift than he can turn back the ocean."

The Italian press is saying similar things, writing about the similarities between Trump and their buffoonish and crass Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, saying the two share "an undeserved vanity, an unnaturally orange skin tone, a penchant for hair plugs and a fondness for pretty girls. Berlusconi was prosecuted for sleeping with an underage belly dancer and Trump was quoted as saying that he would date his daughter if she wasn't his daughter because of her physical attractiveness.

You can find comments like these all over the foreign press from Germany to Scotland and everywhere in between. As much as American Republicans hate him, Europeans hate him even more.

What will add insult to injury if Trump does become the Republican nominee and the eventual President is that he won't be able to fulfill many if any of the promises he has made the people to get them to support him because of a recalcitrant Congress. He may be able to slip through an Executive Order from time to time that bypasses Congress but for the most part, he will be stymied from carrying out his will just like Obama has been for the past seven years.

If Congress doesn't like you or what you stand for, they won't pass your programs and you look like a failure in the eyes of the people.

That's what awaits Trump if he's elected.

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  • I'm not afraid to admit that I was a lifelong democrat. Until four years ago. I voted for Obama because I thought he would bring change. His changes did not meet my expectations and some actually went completely against my beliefs. I have since changed my affiliation to republican and I can honestly say that I'm glad I did.

    I'm not big on politics and there's many out there who know way more about liberals, conservatives, socialists, etc than I do. I think that's the beauty of a free society is that we get to choose. So, I'll lend you my perspective based on the average Joe on the street. I'm guessing many feel the same way I do.

    It seems that career politicians fund their campaigns with money donated by the specials interest groups. In return, when their candidate wins, they expect a "return on their investment". So the common voters, the people, are basically overridden by the big companies who put up big money in hopes of big gains (favors) if their candidate wins. Sure, they make promises to the common folk to lower taxes, improve healthcare, create more jobs...same rhetoric that we've heard for years.

    Now introduce Donlad Trump. A successful businessman and NOT a politician. He talks bluntly and to the point. No beating around the bush or talking in circles until you forget what the question was. He's not taking money from special interest groups and he's addressing the issues that I for one am sick and tired of. Immigration, 2nd Amenment rights, losing business to foreign countries, etc. whether or not he can accomplish these things is yet to be seen.

    If you tune in to the debates and believe what's being said by ALL candidates, none of them should be running! The republicans are too busy trying to figure out what do do about Trump and the democratic side has Hillary that, quite frankly, should be in jail and is running on her husbands reputation, which is a whole story in itself!

    So, for me, I'm voting for Trump. But it's a right and I'm sure many will disagree with me. That's the beauty of the process. I guess we'll know in a few months...

    -- Posted by 82er on Sat, Mar 12, 2016, at 12:08 PM

  • The career politicians are also backing Hillary on the Democratic side. Look at her super delegate count. She very well could get a pass from the President on her email problems also regardless what the evidence may show.

    -- Posted by dennis on Sat, Mar 12, 2016, at 3:38 PM

  • Don't you just love it when the smartest people in the room can't explain the world around them. They always have to resort to the various "ism's" and "phobia's".

    The Trump phenomenon is purely a middle-class America reaction to the sense of neglect they have seem for the past 30+ years. They have seen the upper-class and lower class benefit from various government handouts, that they pay for, and move ahead of them socially.

    Education that was supposed to help them adapt to a new and evolving workforce became unaffordable. And those who did make it through, they were passed up by lower wage foreign and unskilled workers. Health cost are unaffordable to them as is the insurance that is supposed to defray those costs.

    Only one candidate has listened to them without the usual condescending attitude, Donald Trump.

    -- Posted by Hugh Jassle on Fri, Mar 18, 2016, at 1:29 PM
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