Is “terrifying” too strong a description for this election
campaign?
Maybe. But “disturbing” sure isn’t
strong enough, for the campaign or for Republican candidates’ behavior.
For a while, you could find some humor in the antics,
particularly those of Donald Trump. A bit of entertainment you figured would
disappear when the public – and party elders – got a grip and pushed back. But no.
So here we are today, with people who want to be president
acting in ways none of us would permit in our children. The insults, the
name-calling, the lies, the hatred and hostility, the divisiveness, the anger…
the racism and sexism…. all of this is thriving. It’s ruining the reputation of
the party of Abraham Lincoln. And rather than being appalled, voters are
endorsing it.
A few media analysts have suggested that this kind of
behavior could cost Republicans control of the Senate. A month or so ago, I
would have agreed. But based on the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire and South
Carolina primaries, I wouldn’t bet on it.
Trump won in two of those tests and came in second in the
third. The alarming Ted Cruz is one of Trump’s only two real competitors, and
the other, Marco Rubio, seems only slightly more palatable in terms of
temperament and maturity.
Terrifying.
Well, maybe all those folks are just poorly educated
Fox-News-indoctrinated know-nothings.
Apparently not: Take a look at the numbers in a Quinnipiac
poll that was released last week.
The nationwide survey asked Republican and
Republican-leaning voters which Republican candidate they would vote for right
now. Trump led in almost every area. He led in all age groups. He led among
both men and women. Cruz beat him among very conservative Republicans and among
Tea Party Republicans, but Trump led the pack among less conservative
Republicans.
Trump would get the votes of 30 percent of those with a
college degree. Rubio: 24 percent. Cruz: 16. The more thoughtful, less angry –
more polite – Jeb Bush and John Kasich were far behind. On every question, and
in every category – including college educated voters.
Sixty-four percent of the Republican and Republican-leaning
voters had a “favorable” opinion of Rubio. Trump and Cruz: 62 percent each.
(Trump’s “favorability” score was only 55 percent among college-educated
voters. But Cruz scored 61 and Rubio 75.)
The difference between Republicans and Democrats is
interesting: In the same poll, Barack Obama was viewed favorably by 84 percent
of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters – and by 91 percent of
college-educated Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters. (Bernie Sanders: 82
percent; 90 percent college-educated. Hillary Clinton: 74 percent; 75 percent
college educated.)
It’s probably way too early to make many assumptions about
what will happen in this election campaign. And polls aren’t infallible, as
they keep proving. But we have seen and heard for ourselves what the Republican
candidates have been doing. Voters in the first three statewide tests have
expressed their opinion about it. And apparently, they don’t mind the insults,
the outright fabrications, the racism and sexism and appeals to fear and
hatred. Or, worse: they’re applauding it.
It’s troubling that college-educated voters are so willing
to embrace rumors and lies over facts. And as someone whose older family
members included a fair number of born-again Christians, it’s troubling to me
to see voters in that category embrace the hatred and the insults of Donald
Trump and Ted Cruz. (But then again, some of those family members were
shockingly racist; it’s not unusual for Christians of all varieties to pick and
choose as we read the Gospels.)
Maybe we’re just seeing frustrated voters lashing out at
political establishment leaders, blaming them for the very real problems this
country faces. Maybe as we get closer to November, the anger will be spent and
Americans will come to their senses. But then I look at those numbers in the
Quinnipiac poll. Terrifying, honestly.
This article appears in Feb 24 – Mar 1, 2016.
“It’s troubling that college-educated voters are so willing to embrace rumors and lies over facts.”– Mary Anna
Doesn’t it trouble you that these “college educated” voters were taught rumors and lies both throughout their school years and afterword, paying attention to ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN. MSNBC, NYTimes, City News and on and on……….
“College Education” nowadays teaches people WHAT to think, not HOW to think.
Those dam republicans, those dam conservatives, those nasty human being, liars, cheats, why,…. I don’t know why President Obama doesn’t use is executive “privilege” to snuff them out. Take Hilary Clinton for example, squeaky clean, never lies, always tells the truth and takes full responsibility for her action or inactions. She been shot at and survived, which makes her very qualified to be Commander in Chief. Is married to a person who doesn’t mind if she is on the road, for he can be satisfied at home with a “stand in”. He even has experience in the White House. That “experience” was tolerated because Hilary couldn’t get elected to the White House without his “expertise”. The fact that she tolerates his outside adventures and didn’t divorce him is ample proof that she will do anything, say anything, allow bill to do anyone, as long as she can be the first woman president.
There is plenty of criticism to go around for all politicians, Democrat and or Republican. A positive article would be nice. If one cannot be found, it simply proves my point.
On the eve of George W. Bush’s inauguration, The Onion put it thusly: “Our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is finally over.” (January 19, 2001)
Yes, peace and prosperity would truly be a nightmare. The real nightmare had just ended with the Clintons leaving the Whitehouse. Clinton got lucky riding the tech wave, when everyone and his brother were buying computers for the first time.
I remembered when the Clintons arrived on the scene. That’s when politics first got very nasty. America really went downhill. You could just feel it in the air. Very depressing.
suuuuure it was coincidental that during the Clinton years we saw so much peace and prosperity. Right-O!
“I remembered when the Clintons arrived on the scene. That’s when politics first got very nasty. “
I guess you don’t remember Lee Atwater…
Ah, Lee Atwater, who on his death bed begged for forgiveness for how he had degraded our political culture. Thanks for the reminder, joe in Spencerport. Speaking of moral scumbags, how about that Newt Gingrich? He was the real degrader of our political culture in the 80s and 90s – the only Speaker of the House to ever be censured. And of course while he was pursuing impeaching Bill Clinton for marital infidelity (I guess misleading our country into a ruinous war of choice doesn’t count), Gingrich himself was cheating on his second wife.
I read recently that when Newt was running for Prez in ’12, in the Florida Primary he hired robo-callers to call Jewish voters, absurdly claiming that Romney had once denied Holocaust survivors kosher meals. Newt Gingrich, always keeping it classy.
But why stop only in the 90s for “when politics got nasty”: how ’bout that Spiro Agnew? Tricky Dick Nixon? Joe McCarthy? Or the way the Republicans hated and never stopped trying to smear Roosevelt? Truman? But wait, there’s more! If you were black, how about those nation-wide lynchings for the better part of a century? Now that was kind of nasty. And I hear that the period from 1861-1865 was pretty nasty, and I guess it was pretty nasty for a while thereafter.
Hey troll, why not save your fingers and call it “the vast right wing conspiracy?”
But then, as even more so now, you lefties don’t want a real debate–witness city news shutting off comments, even removing the whole article when they don’t like the comments. (like the charlotte carousel) If we can’t talk about things, how can we move forward?
Argument by invective, absent substance … pretty weak stuff.