Well it’s happened; Donald Trump has reached the necessary delegate count to be the Republican Party’s candidate in 2016.
This primary has been an onslaught of madness. Like some absurdist gladiatorial arena, 16 men and one woman had an all-out brawl through a series of debates with plenty of mudslinging and low blows. Just like any free-for-all fight, the craziest candidate won.
Trump may be a heaping mass of crazy with a spray tan and a comb-over, but that’s just barely scratching the surface. He began his campaign with comments about the Mexican government sending criminals to the United States. “When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best… They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” That was just the tip of this iceberg of insanity. Trump's comments against women and Muslims are abhorrent, but still relatively sane compared to certain beliefs Trump has espoused.
We seem to have some collective amnesia about Trump stoking the fires of "birtherism." Back in 2011 Trump was the firebrand behind the movement to find Obama’s real birth certificate. "I have a birth certificate. People have birth certificates. He doesn't have a birth certificate. He may have one but there is something on that birth certificate — maybe religion, maybe it says he's a Muslim, I don't know. Maybe he doesn't want that. Or, he may not have one." The media has seemed to forgotten Trump’s paranoia over the national origin of our 44th president.
To add insult to injury Trump has voiced his belief in the connection between childhood vaccines and autism. At the second GOP debate Trump and Carson clashed over vaccinations and their connection with autism. “Autism has become an epidemic. 25 years ago, 35 years ago, you look at the statistics, not even close. It has gotten totally out of control… Just the other day… a beautiful child went to have the vaccine… and a week later got a tremendous fever, got very, very sick, now is autistic.” There is a universal consensus in the medical community that childhood vaccinations have no connection to autism. Do we want a potential head of state to openly promote pseudo-science?
In February the Supreme Court lost chief justice Antonin Scalia. Before the corpse was even cold rumors were circling about foul play. Radio host Michael Savage asked Trump to weigh in on the gossip, Trump said: “They say they found a pillow on his face, which is a pretty unusual place to find a pillow.” To imply that Scalia was assassinated is insane, the death of the chief justice has become a partisan issue and Trump added fuel to that fire.
We need to take a step back and look rationally at Trump’s statements. Trump can’t continue to be taken with a grain of salt. He is at the precipice of the presidency. Do we want our head of state, our commander in chief to be crazy? And will the world still be there with his tiny orange hands by the big red button?
