Will our state be a bystander to Hurricane Trump?
The Super Tuesday primaries proved beyond a doubt that Donald Trump has a strong wind at his back. No longer can his campaign of blowhard demagoguery be written off as a rogue gust ripping through a handful of outlier states. The Republican frontrunner tore through the South and Northeast like a hurricane, winning seven of 11 states and pushing his delegate count above 300.
The GOP mainstream faces long odds to stop Trump’s momentum. It remains to be seen whether the many reasonable minds registered as Republicans in the Evergreen State will have a chance to help. Washington’s needlessly late May 24 presidential primary might place voters in the excruciating role of bystanders to a shameful turn in American history.
Regardless, Republicans in our state should not stay silent.
The reality of Trump’s name appearing on Washington’s primary ballot was sealed in February when Secretary of State Kim Wyman submitted her initial list of candidates. It includes Republicans Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Marco Rubio and Donald Trump. Before Wyman certifies the final list on March 19, a candidate or two likely will be removed, none of them named Trump.
Many influential Washington Republicans didn’t see this coming. When state GOP Chairwoman Susan Hutchinson met with the News Tribune editorial board in early December, she predicted the billionaire had little chance of being the nominee. In an interview last week, she qualified those remarks: “The hearts of the voters are a constantly moving target.”
That Trump has won so many voters’ hearts beggars the imagination. He has advocated banning Muslims from entering the country, pledged to build a border wall at Mexico’s expense, insulted the disabled, threatened the news media, dithered before disavowing David Duke and openly regretted not being able to punch citizens in the nose.
Two reputable fact-checking organizations have given Trump their “King of the Whoppers” and “Pinocchio” awards. Another watchdog, Pulitzer-Prize winning PolitiFact, found more than three-fourths of the Trump statements it reviewed were either “mostly false,” “false” or “pants-on-fire” false – a record of mendacity that leads the rest of the presidential field by a mile.
One of the worst impacts of Hurricane Donald is the way it has released the most ignoble impulses of the American id.
Even worse is the way it has released them in our children. Consider the students at a North Indiana high school basketball game last week who waved a cutout image of Trump and screamed “Build a wall!” across the gym at their opponents from a mostly Hispanic school.
Temperate and gracious presidents can help bring out the better angels of a nation. John F. Kennedy preached “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Under his watch, the Peace Corps was born.
James Monroe went on a goodwill tour of the U.S. and was described as radiating an “unusual ability to put men at ease by his courtesy, lack of condescension ... and what his contemporaries looked upon as the essential goodness and kindness of heart." Under his watch, the Era of Good Feelings was born.
Under Trump’s watch, an Era of Raw Feelings would be assured.
Is there any hope of blocking him from the GOP nomination, especially if you live in a state with a late-May primary? Washington Republicans are already looking ahead to 2020, planning how to make the primary a game-changer.
Hutchinson said a Republican-controlled Legislature would move the date to March 8. Wyman says she will restart a conversation with her counterparts in neighboring states about forming a West Coast version of Super Tuesday. Both of those ideas sound sensible.
Meanwhile, anti-Trump Republicans shouldn’t give up on 2016. He still must secure more than half of the delegates in the remaining states to lock down the nomination.
A New York Times analysis last week found if he keeps winning by the same margins against the same GOP field, he would hit the 1,237-delegate jackpot right around the day of the Washington primary.
The time has come for veteran state Republican leaders to take a stand against Trump and his bullyboy brand of politics. Former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton and current U.S. Senate candidate Chris Vance are among the few who have stepped up so far.
A day of reckoning is approaching, if it’s not already here: Will you face down the windstorm, like Mitt Romney, or will you let it blow you off your moorings, like Chris Christie?
This story was originally published March 5, 2016 at 7:00 AM with the headline "Will our state be a bystander to Hurricane Trump?."