Donald Trump has seen more media publicity than any other presidential candidate has since declaring his candidacy on June 16. The business mogul touts his fortune and negotiating competency as two major reasons why he would make a good president, but his bombastic rhetoric has been what’s making all the headlines.
Trump points to the polls showing him atop the Republican field for president as proof that he’s tapping into the “silent majority.” Here are seven reasons why that isn’t true and why he shouldn’t receive the Republican nomination.
His relationship with the Republican Party is shaky at best.
It’s no secret that Republican leadership is worried about the damage that Trump could do to their party’s image. After his controversial comments on Mexican immigrants, he was asked by the chairman of the Republican National Committee to tone down his inflammatory language (which obviously hasn’t happened).
He also frequently feuds with other Republican candidates. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham called him a jackass, which Trump responded to by calling him an idiot and publicly releasing Graham’s phone number. Texas Governor Rick Perry called Trump “a cancer on conservatism,” and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, the most common target of Trump’s criticism, said that his comments on Mexican immigrants were “extraordinarily ugly.”
How is Trump supposed to win the general election if his own party leadership won’t support him if he gets the nomination?
At one point he was a Democrat.
In August 2001, Trump switched from being an independent to the Democratic Party where he remained for eight years. This was just one of five known situations where he changed his political affiliation.
Yes, the man who now considers himself the best Republican candidate for president wasn’t even a Republican 10 years ago. Not to mention he used to support Democratic ideas such as universal healthcare, assault weapon bans, and the choice to get an abortion—all things that he has now changed his mind on. He has even donated over $500,000 to Democrats since 1990.
Can we really trust someone that has a tendency to change his principles so drastically?
He made racist comments in his first speech as candidate.
To kick off his campaign, Trump thought it’d be a good idea to discuss our country’s illegal immigration problem. His idea backfired when he said this:
“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
By generalizing the majority of Mexican immigrants as being drug dealers and rapists, he not only alienated Hispanic voters, but average Americans as well. Sure, there’s a small portion of the country that racist language still resonates with (the 19 percent of Republicans that supported him in the last poll), but the majority of Americans are turned off by it.
The Hispanic vote is vital to a candidate hoping to win the presidential election, and if the Donald Trump piñatas are any indication, he won’t be helping his party gain any traction among that demographic.
He’s not a fan of U.S. soldiers that have been captured and tortured.
Arizona Sen. John McCain was captured in the Vietnam War and tortured for more than five years. He even denied being released until his fellow soldiers that were there longer than him were released first. Upon his return to America, he was awarded numerous military awards and was hailed as a national hero.
Donald Trump disagrees with that distinction, though. During a Q&A with Pollster Frank Luntz in Iowa, Trump said about McCain, “He’s not a war hero.” When met by boos from the crowd, and an incredulous “He is a war hero” from Frank Luntz, Trump sarcastically said, “He is a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured. Okay?”
I understand that he’s been feuding recently with McCain, but that doesn’t excuse disrespecting American troops that have faced inhumane torture. If anybody deserves sympathy and respect, it’s them.
Apologies are nowhere to be found.
You’d think that after offending one of the largest growing demographics in America and American soldiers that endured unimaginable pain, Trump would understand that some sort of an apology is warranted. Instead, he always aims to justify his controversial statements.
When asked about his comments on Mexican immigrants, he justified his statements by blaming the Mexican government for pushing criminals into our country. When asked whether John McCain deserved an apology, Trump said, “No, not at all,” and then went on to discuss how soldiers that don’t get captured are “forgotten.”
A president should be mature enough to apologize when a situation warrants it. Trump has a hard time admitting when he’s wrong, and that could be disastrous in dealing with foreign relations. How can you gain respect from a foreign country if you say something offensive to them and refuse to apologize?
No government experience at all.
There’s no denying the fact that Donald Trump has an extensive business resume. On the surface, that might seem to help his case for helping America’s economy, but when you dig deeper, it appears that might not be true.
First of all, businesses owned by him have filed bankruptcy four times. Those may have been the proper business decisions, but you can’t just file bankruptcy and make all of the problems with the economy go away.
He says that he would negotiate all sorts of good deals with foreign countries, but if you take his argumentative nature into account, that might be easier said than done. His billions of dollar in wealth prove his competency as a businessman, but with no government experience, there’s no proof he’d be able to take that experience successfully into the Oval Office.
Tends to get the facts wrong.
From his claims that Obama wasn’t born in America, to his belief that Mexico is forcing bad people into America, The Don is no stranger to making false statements. The Pulitzer Prize winning website "PolitiFact," which fact-checks statements, has found that the majority of statements made by Trump are false.
An article from the Washington Post actually found plenty of inaccuracies in his announcement speech alone. Donald Trump is perfect for training a fact checker, but he isn’t perfect for being president.
