There was once a time, long ago, when the entertainment figure Donald Trump was secluded to a one-hour segment every Thursday night on NBC. Quite possibly an American pastime, we as a country could devote our time to witness the ludicrous behavior of the real estate mogul lash out his bigotry and blather on television.
It’s what we call the “good ole days” — a time where Trump was solely associated with reality TV, rather than consuming 24-hour cable news and being the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination.
But in all fairness, this is 10 times more entertaining than “The Apprentice.”
Just look at Trump’s official statement released Dec. 7 “calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”
So let me help explain what is going on.
Following the statement’s release, a handful of Trump’s fellow contenders for the Republican nomination and other notable conservatives spoke denounced this proposed action. Former Vice Pres. Dick Cheney said, “I think this whole notion that somehow we can just say no more Muslims, just ban a whole religion, goes against everything we stand for and believe in.”
Even Trump’s opponent Ben Carson rejected the idea in an interview with CNN.
“It’s just not who we are,” he said. “We do not discriminate on people based on religion.”
One of the only conservatives who have come out in support of Trump’s statement was Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
But the GOP members in support of Trump are blindly wrong in believing his ideas don’t reflect themselves, a party largely built behind fear mongering.
Back in September, Ben Carson said he “would not advocate” a Muslim becoming president. A month later, after the Paris attacks, Jeb Bush and Sen. Ted Cruz called to only permit Christian refugees from Syria to enter this country. God bless America, right?
Around the same time, 31 governors — a majority of which were Republican — protested the admission of Syrian refugees into their states, as it was revealed two of the attackers entered the EU as Syrian refugees. And one might certainly think in time likes these, this is a necessary precaution, but it’s not: it’s hysteria.
It takes over two years for a refugee to be granted access into the states, and of those 785,000 refugees admitted since 9/11, only three have been arrested for terrorism related charges.
There’s a reason Donald Trump has held the front-runner position in the Republican Party for months. But this hatred and prejudicial rhetoric isn’t an aspect of the party he invented.
To put it in Edward R. Murrow’s words as he described Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s actions towards communism, “He didn’t create this situation of fear, he merely exploited it — and rather successfully.”
It was once entertaining to watch one man convince some thousands he could build a wall on the border of Mexico or deport over 10 million Mexican immigrants. It was a pleasure witnessing the derailing chance of the GOP winning the 2016 presidency.
But that time has passed. People actually bought it. It’s not entertaining to witness millions across the nation swarm to his side in support — it’s terrifying.
