Trump Cannot Be Our Choice

By William McRight

In considering the candidacy of Donald J. Trump, one must engage in a series of assumptions, reaches, suppositions, and leaps of faith that would rupture the hamstrings of the most fit and finely tuned Olympian.  Setting out a series points regarding Trump’s validity, authenticity, electability and fitness for office might be well received as we wade into a meaty part of the primary and caucus schedule.

He Doesn’t Hear a Lot or Doesn’t Know a Lot.

One of Trump’s early hiccup moments in his candidacy was his lockup moment in a radio interview with Hugh Hewitt. Case in point:

HH: I would thought that today, this is our sixth interview, I’d turn to some of the commander-in-chief questions. Are you ready for that?
DT: Okay, fine.
HH: Are you familiar with General Soleimani?
DT: Yes, but go ahead, give me a little, go ahead, tell me.
HH: He runs the Quds Forces.
DT: Yes, okay, right.
HH: Do you expect his behavior…
DT: The Kurds, by the way, have been horribly mistreated by …
HH: No, not the Kurds, the Quds Forces, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Quds Forces.
DT: Yes, yes.
HH: …is the bad guys.
DT: Right.
HH: Do you expect his behavior to change as a result…
DT: Oh, I thought you said Kurds, Kurds.
HH: No, Quds.
DT: Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you said Kurds, because I think the Kurds have been poorly treated by us, Hugh. Go ahead.

Only yesterday he was given a question on DACA, Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. A program that would fly in the face of the big, beautiful wall.

“You have accused Jeb Bush of being weak on immigration…” a reporter began during a South Carolina press conference.
“Weak, period,” Trump corrected.
“There are over 100,000 young people known as DREAMers who have deferred action given to them…” she began again, referring to the program enacted by executive action by President Barack Obama in 2012.
“Sure, I think it’s great,” Trump said.

That flies in the face of some of his previous statements, to put it lightly.

So two questions where the premise was clearly stated and he simply blurts out an answer that is contrary to his often stated positions. On policy matters, he often seems unfocused, untethered to any sort of reality or seriously uninformed. Or all three.  One could site endless passages of these type of answers from Donald Trump. Many of these answers are word salads of self congratulatory platitudes and bromides that are doctoral dissertations in ether.  The answers say nothing precisely because they mean nothing. They are many and easily researched. We need not set the bar extraordinarily high but crafting an answer to a question that is easily understandable should not be out of the question.

His Answers Mean Absolutely Nothing - Part Two

Some folks around the interwebs have noted Trump’s answers lack substance. The answer he delivered on the Nuclear Triad (strategic bombers, ICBMs and sub launched ballistic missiles) was perhaps the stupidest chain of words put together in a line while pretending to make sense or be a sentence. It really is glorious.  Hugh Hewitt again asked the question:

“What’s your priority among our nuclear triad?”
Trump: “Well, first of all, I think we need somebody absolutely that we can trust, who is totally responsible; who really knows what he or she is doing. That is so powerful and so important. And one of the things that I’m frankly most proud of is that in 2003, 2004, I was totally against going into Iraq because you’re going to destabilize the Middle East. I called it. I called it very strongly. And it was very important.
“But we have to be extremely vigilant and extremely careful when it comes to nuclear. Nuclear changes the whole ball game. Frankly, I would have said get out of Syria; get out — if we didn’t have the power of weaponry today. The power is so massive that we can’t just leave areas that 50 years ago or 75 years ago we wouldn’t care. It was hand-to-hand combat.
“The biggest problem this world has today is not President Obama with global warming, which is inconceivable, this is what he’s saying. The biggest problem we have is nuclear — nuclear proliferation and having some maniac, having some madman go out and get a nuclear weapon. That’s in my opinion, that is the single biggest problem that our country faces right now.
Hewitt: “Of the three legs of the triad, though, do you have a priority? I want to go to Senator Rubio after that and ask him.”
Trump: “I think — I think, for me, nuclear is just the power, the devastation is very important to me.”

What? Wait a minute. Stop here. Go back up and read it again. I’ll wait.

It may be the single Worst Answer ever offered by any candidate in any forum anywhere ever. We should all remember that the person who uttered these words would be in charge of our national nuclear arsenal, our institutions, our spirit and psyche in time of crisis and our overall image around the world. He is a real estate developer. With no applicable skill set for the job he is seeking. It is as if a man who figured out how to burn ants with a magnifying glass considering himself smart enough and capable enough to walk into the NASA JPL and apply for the chief physicist role because of his bombast and “presence.” It would be an unmitigated disaster to put the ant burner in charge of anything. Same thing for, oh let’s say, OUR COUNTRY!!!!

He Has No Story to Tell On How He Got Here

All of the candidates have a story to tell. Rubio and his pay back to the country which gave his Dad the bartender so many opportunities and chances. Kasich (Did you know his Dad was a Mailman?) positively karate chopping his way into our hearts with positively positive upbeat message of bloated government. Ted Cruz has his illustrious law career, decades of defending the Constitution and the story of his Dad and the $100 sewn into his underwear while he migrated from Cuba. Cruz now recommends everyone gets a wallet. Jeb!....well, we have all lived the Jeb! story. A bunch of the Bushes used to be the boss of us. We get it. All of them have a story. They can craft and relay a logical construct on how they came to be who they are. A story.

With Trump there is no story. There is a pronouncement.  A pronouncement that sits in the shadow of a M O U N T A I N of liberal positions, endorsements, donations and statements. The pronouncement, “I am a common sense conservative” that is supposed to cathartically wash all of that damage and unfettered liberalism. The hundreds of thousands of dollars of donations to people hell bent on destroying conservatives. There is no Road to Damascus Moment. No epiphany.  No “Eureka!” There is just, “I am…and if you do not accept that I am, you are a LIAR, a cuckservative and a RINO.”

To this point, times of crisis will necessitate a leader who can weave a tapestry with words to heal a nation’s heart.. One could surely see Ted Cruz doing this. One could imagine Rubio doing this To some degree, you could even picture Jeb! or Kasich helping us through a time of darkness bless their goofy and karate chopping hearts.  But not Trump. His candidacy and demeanor, evidenced clearly by the South Carolina Debate, is a simmering pot of smelly boiled eggs seconds from boiling all over the stove.  A Trump presidency will leave us fractured and separated, rudderless and divided.

We cannot risk this. We do not need strongmen. We do not need a dictator. We do not need a cult of personality. At times such as this we need leaders. We need visionaries fired by principle and dedication to something greater than themselves. Men and women who speak can speak to and inspire out heroes while lifting up the least of us. We need people who know and can elucidate what is best about America and speak in a manner that states, despite our troubles and challenges, we are and have always been a great nation, a special and unique nation.

Donald J Trump is not that man. Now or ever. He cannot be our choice.