Donald J. Trump: RINO

[Ford]

While watching Republicans like Miss Lindsey Graham, Paul Ryan, and Mark Kirk alternately express disgust for Trump's clearly racist statements on the "Mexican" judge and line up (gamely) behind him, it struck me that there was a term I hadn't heard once this election season:

Republican In Name Only, or RINO for short.

A few years ago, that label was used to devastating effect, leveled against the few remaining GOP moderates (and a lot who weren't moderate) by Tea Party candidates who were hell-bent on purging the party from those not considered sufficiently conservative.

It succeeded to a considerable degree. Long-serving Senators and Congressmen were swept out of their offices. Former conservative stalwarts had to tack right in order to hold onto their seats. It lost a bit of steam by 2014, but the RINO label was still toxic to a certain degree.

Yet now, the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party is a RINO in every way. He's not a lifelong member of the party. He's not a lifelong conservative. He's got a history of supporting Democrats. He's certainly not a "family values" candidate or a darling of the evangelicals. He's adopted the mantle of Republican out of pure political expediency.


I'm wondering aloud why nobody on the right has attempted to brand him as a RINO.

 

[Deepak]

You're missing the mark here. Graham, Ryan, and Kirk are the RINOs, not Trump. He's not doing as badly among evangelicals as some news articles would have you believe. http://www.christianpost.com/news/e...e-trump-not-the-antichrist-poll-finds-160594/ <- Tongue in cheek

He's saying what Real Americans^TM are thinking - the rest is window-dressing.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

As Deepak says, the believers think Trump is the second coming of Reagan. Not the actual Reagan, but the mythical one.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[fast]

[...] Trump's clearly racist statements on the "Mexican" judge [...]

I'm not sure things are as clear as many seem to think. There is no, "you're of Mexican heritage and therefore you're bad" argument. There is no, "you're of Mexican heritage and therefore you're inferior" kind of argument. Race was mentioned, yes, and there was a negative judgement, but it was not in isolation.

There is a very real possibility that a person sympathetic to his parents heritage could be biased, and so, it can be a factor, but without an additional unisolated factor, it's generally accepted that judges can suppress potential biases and refrain from allowing potential biases effect his duty to indifference; therefore, with no good reason to consider heritage as being a biasing factor it's better not to call a persons heritage in question.

The problem is, there is the factor of hate of Trump by the judge. Couple that with the fact Trump is building a much publicized wall between America and the country his parents are from, we need to inspect once again the probable bias against probable restraint.

If Trump is somehow being racist, it's certainly much distinguishable from more common kinds of racism. Let's not treat this as if Trump thinks what people interpret his statements to mean. He, in my opinion, does not believe heritage or race disqualifies someone from being able to impartially judge, and the message he repeatedly tried to deliver that continues to fall on deaf ears is that THIS judge of Mexican heritage can't be trusted to be unbiased, and it's not this judges hate of Trump alone that makes this so but his heritage as well, as the wall exasperates the issue such that his heritage should be weighted more than average against an otherwise reasonable belief that a person can be indifferent.

 

[Bronzeage]

Trump is not a Republican, even in name. He's just an opportunist.

 

[Deepak]

Trump is not a Republican, even in name. He's just an opportunist.

How happy is the blameless Orangeman's lot

 

[ronburgundy]

He is an ignorant misogynist bigot that supports corporatism and has a dangerously infantile grasp of history and international politics. That perfectly describes the vast majority of the Republican base. Yes, he is also an opportunist seeking to exploit these qualities in the electorate, but he is so good at it because it doesn't require a dishonest act, so much as just accentuating his own tendencies and qualities.

What Trump lacks that the GOP is upset about is merely the rehearsed rhetoric that GOP leaders use to mask these qualities, so as not to alarm the swing voters who don't share these views but are still dumb enough to be fooled that these views aren't the foundation of the modern GOP.

 

[Elixir]

He is an ignorant misogynist bigot that supports corporatism and has a dangerously infantile grasp of history and international politics. That perfectly describes the vast majority of the Republican base. Yes, he is also an opportunist seeking to exploit these qualities in the electorate, but he is so good at it because it doesn't require a dishonest act, so much as just accentuating his own tendencies and qualities.

What Trump lacks that the GOP is upset about is merely the rehearsed rhetoric that GOP leaders use to mask these qualities, so as not to alarm the swing voters who don't share these views but are still dumb enough to be fooled that these views aren't the foundation of the modern GOP.

Well, you said it better than I was about to. Reps - that is exactly right.