When the leading Republican presidential candidate advocated “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” and compared it positively to the shameful U.S. imprisonment of Japanese-Americans in concentration camps during World War II, Republicans finally woke up to the danger of their party carrying hatred too far.
But even though Republican leaders finally scrounged up the courage to denounce frontrunner Donald Trump’s latest outrage, so far not a single one of them has refused to support Trump for president if he’s the Republican nominee.
In fact, Wisconsin Congressman Reid Ribble is one of the very few Republican officials nationally brave enough to say he won’t support Trump if the party nominates him.
Republicans have relied on attracting poorly educated, white racist voters to win elections for so long they’re terrified of alienating them.
Ribble opposes Trump for all the right reasons.
He told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Trump’s appalling campaign is intentionally designed “to be as inflammatory as possible, which appeals to the worst parts of who we are as people. It appeals to our fears. It appeals to our racism. It appeals to all the negative things about us.”
Ribble puts to shame others in the party, including the new speaker of the House, Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, who say they’ll support Trump as the nominee even as they denounce Trump’s reprehensible idea of ending freedom of religion in the U.S. as reckless, unconstitutional and un-American.
Since rising to speaker, Ryan has carefully avoided saying anything to anger the most extreme, right-wing Republicans who are not only Trump’s natural constituency, but Ryan’s as well.
But Ryan finally condemned Trump’s idea of totally banning all Muslims from entering the country.
“This is not conservatism,” Ryan said. “This is not what this party stands for, and more importantly, this is not what this country stands for.”
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At a time when most of the party’s presidential candidates also were promoting fear of Muslims to boost their campaigns, Ryan eerily echoed President Barack Obama’s speech to the nation just a few nights earlier.
“Not only are there many Muslims serving in our armed forces dying for this country,” Ryan said, “there are Muslims serving right here in the House working every day to uphold and to defend the Constitution.”
Like the president, Ryan said some of America’s strongest allies in the fight against Islamic State radicals and Al Qaeda “are Muslims, the vast, vast, vast, vast majority of whom are peaceful, who believe in pluralism, freedom, democracy, individual rights.”
South Carolina Republican Gov. Nikki Haley, who, like Ryan, has strong tea party support and also is the daughter of Indian immigrants, called Trump’s proposed ban “an embarrassment to the Republican Party. It’s absolutely un-American, it’s unconstitutional, it defies everything this country was based on and it’s just wrong.”
You know a Republican candidate has finally lost every shred of decency when his ideas offend even former Vice President Dick Cheney, the waterboarding Republican Prince of Darkness.
Cheney said on right-wing radio that Trump’s proposed shutdown of immigration based on religion “goes against everything we stand for and believe in. Religious freedom has been a very important part of our history and where we came from.”
For a change, even other Republican presidential candidates openly attacked Trump instead of simply trying to pass themselves off as slightly more cleaned-up versions.
Jeb Bush called Trump “unhinged.” Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said Trump’s campaign was based on “making offensive and outlandish statements that will not bring Americans together.” South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said Trump was taking “xenophobia and religious bigotry to a new level.”
Only Texas Sen. Ted Cruz continued to publicly smooch Trump’s backside, lusting after either a share of Trump’s extremist support or the vice presidential spot on his ticket.
Critics Would Support Trump as GOP Nominee
Yet for all the official Republican outrage suddenly being showered down on Trump, almost every prominent Republican leader says exactly the same thing as Ryan does when asked whether he’ll support Trump for president if he wins the Republican nomination.
“I’m going to support whoever the Republican nominee is,” Ryan said. Noting as speaker he’ll preside over the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July, Ryan said: “Wouldn’t it be a little weird if the chair of the convention isn’t supporting the actual nominee?”
You know what would be even weirder? Ryan and all those other Republicans who claim to find Trump so off-the-charts offensive and un-American supporting him for president.
Maybe they could form their own super PAC called Anti-Trump Republicans for Trump.
Here’s a terrific script for their first campaign ad using the actual words of Trump’s loyal Republican supporters:
“Elect Republican Donald Trump, an unhinged, offensive, outlandish, absolutely un-American racial and religious bigot whose unconstitutional proposals are an embarrassment to the Republican Party, go against everything we stand for and believe in, defy everything this country was based on and are just wrong.”
