I don’t know if the sentiments espoused by Donald Trump are genuine. I’m fairly certain he’s playing a character, being the opportunist he is, rather than running on his own beliefs. But really, that just makes it all the more worrisome.
We’re looking at someone who’s willing to do whatever’s necessary to gain power. He has no real platform – just restless animosity aimed at anyone who dares to challenge him.
He says nothing of substance. He simply repeats meaningless talking points while spewing ad hominem attacks at his opponents. He doesn’t know or understand the issues, so he can’t engage his fellow candidates in an actual debate, which means he has to rely on nasty, petty, demeaning and irrelevant personal insults – the kind of stuff you’d expect to hear on an elementary school playground, not the stage of candidates running for the highest political office in the world.
Among the many outrageous statements to leave his mouth, this might be the most telling:
“I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.”
That he would brag about murder with such repugnant audacity should be reason enough NOT to vote for him.
Donald Trump is unprofessional, uncouth, petulant and without tact. He has no restraint. He is the physical embodiment of the baseless anger that comes from a group of Americans who incorrectly perceive themselves as somehow being persecuted for… something?? This is a group of a mostly-white, no/low-information voters.
If you were to ask them what they like about Trump, many would answer with something along the lines of, “He tells it like it is!” whatever that actually means. But if you were to ask about specific platform issues, they likely couldn’t give you an answer, apart from:
-building a 2,000-mile-long wall along the border with Mexico (and somehow expecting them to pay for it) while rounding up all the illegal immigrants currently in the United States and sending them back to their home countries. That’s estimated to be approximately 12-20 million people, and includes more than just people from Mexico and other Latin-American countries.
-somehow keeping Muslim people from legally entering the United States.
Neither are practical, nor are they moral.
Trump brags about spending his own money on his campaign (he’s worth somewhere between $4-10 billion), and how he’s not beholden to any companies, organizations or special interests. Okay, well, that’s great, but he’s also not actually receiving any campaign donations from the people who support him, either. So really, he’s not beholden to his own voters, either.
He makes everything about himself. He’s an egomaniac. And I just don’t understand how anyone can look at him and, in good faith, hand him their vote. He is brash, he is hateful, and has displayed none of the qualities one would hope to find in the leader of the single most important nation on the planet.