Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Editorial:

GOP candidates who support Trump must explain why — in detail

Donald Trump

Ross Franklin / AP

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a rally Saturday, June 18, 2016, in Phoenix.

With the primary elections behind us, voters across America can now focus on whom to support in the general election in less than five months.

Among the most important issues facing Nevadans: How fervently will the candidates oppose the use of Yucca Mountain as a place to store highly radioactive nuclear waste? And how committed will state lawmakers be in sufficiently funding K-12 and higher education while providing continued funding for the nascent UNLV School of Medicine — fundamental pillars of a strong economy and a bright future?

But the most important and telling litmus test of all is one that we put to the Republican candidates, and which will speak volumes about their character. The question requires a simple yes-or-no answer, no equivocating, no waffling, no shrugging it off.

Do you want Donald Trump to be the president of the United States? Do you share his values?

If you do, this means:

• You think it is OK for law enforcement to suspect certain people are more inclined to be criminals — even terrorists — based on the color of their skin. It is fine, you believe, and it is OK to belittle them for their heritage, as Trump does.

• You naively agree that some 11 million people living in the United States illegally should be rounded up and returned to their home countries — an utterly impossible task given the total lack of manpower to find them, detain them in jails, prisons and camps that don’t exist for a project on this scale, and run them through a court system that would be overwhelmed beyond comprehension, then to face many of them trying to re-enter, when thoughtful immigration reform can achieve far superior results.

• You are as foolhardy as Trump in embracing a wall to keep people south of the border from entering the United States illegally — a laughable absurdity and logistical nonstarter in terms of cost, of course, but also in terms of engineering, construction, ecological destruction, right-of-way acquisition and international treaty obstacles. And it suggests you don’t mind a president who seriously pitches these ideas, thereby betraying his lack of any sense of reality.

• You’re willing to throw what fragile global stability we have today to the wind by agreeing to withdraw the United States from NATO and encouraging more countries to control their own nuclear weapons. Oh sure, why not?

• You think it’s OK for the country to plummet into an even worse recession than the last one — one so bad it would destabilize the global economy — because you think Trump is on to something when he says the country should borrow more money to pay for government services and then default on that debt.

• You really don’t feel it’s necessary to be transparent with voters about your financial background, where you’ve earned your money and how you maybe have worked the loophole-pocked tax laws to your benefit; after all, if Trump isn’t going to release his tax returns because he’s obviously got something to hide, why should you?

• You prefer the life of a lying politician who can’t be trusted. If Trump can spew so many misstatements and factual errors, if not downright premeditated lies — on such topics as the unemployment rate, the California drought or his business successes, why should you be held to some standard of honesty?

• You are thin-skinned and think the media is unfair when it criticizes you, thus Trump’s idea of somehow watering down the First Amendment and the role of the news media as a government watchdog is sheer genius.

Of course, Republican candidates are free to endorse Trump, even if he comes with the baggage of a 70 percent disapproval rating. Or they can campaign as honorable politicians, putting country ahead of some blind allegiance to a naïve, narcissistic, womanizing bully who has no idea what he’s talking about, and disavow him. Voters absolutely deserve to know. And really, this shouldn’t be a tough decision.

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