One of my favorite writers, Kurt Eichenwald at Newsweek, has been plunging knives into Trump for weeks. The articles have mostly been open letters to Paul Ryan urging him to withdraw his endorsement of Trump. He is also the one who turned the conspiracy theory about Clinton’s health into a story about Trump’s ridiculous doctor letter. (He stunned a Trump surrogate on CNN who wanted to talk about the conspiracy theory by taking out the letter on the air and declaring it fake.)
In a new story, he has opened up a can of whoop-ass. This is the most brutal exposure of everything about Trump I have seen in the MSM. It’s like the anti-AP. The only critique I can muster is “Why did you hold back until he got the nomination?” Still, better late than never. On the other hand, if Trump wins, Newsweek will never be allowed in the White House after this.
The article is this refrain asking Ryan what is it about Trump he endorses. The point he makes is that Trump is not a real Republican. While I think that’s naïve, since Trump does represent Republicanism at its rawest form, it then details everything about Trump and asking Ryan if he is saying this is what the Republicans stand for. It’s all there: Racism, xenophobia, corruption, nuclear proliferation, war crimes, insulting allies, supporting enemies, and lots more.
It’s hard to pick one or two parts of the article to quote because it unloads so much, so I’ll just pick a few choice bits. One of the most heartbreaking are the parts about the impact the Trump candidacy and all of his racist slime is having on children of color around the country.
“My students are terrified of Donald Trump,” says one teacher from a middle school with a large population of African-American Muslims. “They think that if he’s elected, all black people will get sent back to Africa.” In Oregon, an elementary school teacher says her black students are “concerned for their safety because of what they see on TV at Trump rallies.” In Tennessee, a kindergarten teacher says a Latino child, who has been bullied by classmates telling him he will be deported, asks every day, “Is the wall here yet?”
One of the things that is interesting is that the article looks back on the keynote speech by a Hispanic politician at the 1984 Republican convention where she appealed to Hispanics by saying “Nuestra casa es su casa.” Then it compares things to today.
There is no “Nuestra casa es su casa” message anymore. Instead, phrases like “Fuck that nigger!” are yelled (on camera) at Trump rallies. Hispanic citizens of the U.S. are regularly confronted with screams of “Build the wall!” A dark-skinned Trump supporter was escorted out of a rally for fear he was a protester. Sean Jackson, the head of the Black Republican Caucus of Florida, was also evicted from a rally and now says the Trump campaign doesn’t care about minorities. When Senator Tim Kaine, the Democrats’ vice presidential nominee, spoke Spanish in his speech at the convention (just as Ortega did at the Republican convention more than three decades ago), über-preppy conservative Tucker Carlson on Fox News saw this as ominous, warning that it had “deeper implications for the country.”
I can’t go much further without violating Fair Use, but I think the summary paragraph shows the across the board slam in this article, rubbing Ryan’s face in all of it.
Which leads back to my original question, Mr. Speaker: What is the Republican Party today? What is it you’re endorsing in this campaign? If you believe the GOP stands for racism, xenophobia, protectionism, nuclear proliferation, torture, war crimes, the reckless use of military force and fanboy support for a powerful and conniving dictator who threatens America, then please proceed.
Ouch.