The Trump Dichotomy

As a liberal democrat from Los Angeles, I’m hard wired to find most of the things that come out of Donald Trump’s big mouth more than a little bit offensive, reckless and dangerous. But the great dichotomy of the 2016 election, to me at least, is the way Trump unilaterally ridiculed, discredited, and called out the hypocrisies of the Republican Party from the inside out.

Trump has called out the war mongering worst remnants of the Bush Administration, so easy considering that his brother was right there to take the heat for him. Jeb! took five days – five days – before figuring out that knowing what we know now, invading Iraq was not the right thing to do.

He was the only person on the debate stage to say that the government cannot allow our own citizens to “die on the streets” because of a lack of healthcare, and in response, Ted Cruz attacked him saying he was for socialized medicine.

And don’t even get me started on the remnants of the Bush talking heads: Karl Rove, Charles Krauthammer, George Will, Bill Kristol, Lindsey Graham, and the remainder of neo-cons that the self-proclaimed “Ernest Hemmingway of 140 characters,” eviscerates on a near daily basis on Twitter.

It’s important to understand that despite how out of touch Trump seems with America, his leading alternative, endorsed now by many from the Republican establishment is Cruz, a man who indulges similar, as troubling views as Trump, like his recent proposal to turn our Muslim communities into police states in the wake of the Belgian bombings, not out of any basis in fact or sound policing (he was directly rebuked by the Commissioner of the New York Police Department), but again, to stir up America’s worst fear induced instincts. Time and again, fringe Republicans, supported by the establishment have supported destructive, discriminatory and unjust policies, who lied to the American public for decades, convincing many low income and poorly educated people to vote against their interests. Remember, Trump "loves the poorly educated." 

These are only a few of the positions that Trump has taken that are at odds with the Republican Party’s true core: whoever is giving them the most money. For years, the Republican establishment, especially in Congress, have catered to America’s worst xenophobic instincts to find votes. What do they do when this isn’t popular enough to garner enough votes? They enact archaic voting policies like in Arizona, where 200 polling stations were reduced to 60 in Maricopa County, resulting in 5 hour lines to cast ballots.

The thing is, they got away with all of this for years. They weren't counting on someone taking it down from the inside.

I’m not saying any of Trump’s behavior is presidential, far from it. But it’s becoming increasingly likely with each passing primary that Donald Trump is going to be the Republican nominee. He will lose as the Republican nominee. According to the Huffington Post’s favorability average, two thirds of the country sees him as unfavorable, yet he commands the support of nearly half of Republicans because they feel as if he's not lying to them, maybe because he’s not really a candidate that completely resembles the recent Republican Party ideology, but has rallied a disaffected, angry group of people who feel like they've been scammed.

But let’s be clear about one thing, the Republicans did this to themselves.

-Sean Eckhardt