Asked about one right-wing blogger who said Republicans were backing a racist candidate, McConnell simpered that what matters is winning the White House. “The right-of-center world needs to respect the fact that the primary voters have spoken,” he said.
Yes, in favor of blatant intolerance.
.. Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House, who practically strained his back flipping from denouncing Trump to endorsing him, said that “claiming a person can’t do their job because of their race is sort of like the textbook definition of a racist comment. I think that should be absolutely disavowed. It’s absolutely unacceptable.”
Not so unacceptable that he is withdrawing his endorsement. “I believe that we have more common ground on the policy issues of the day and we have more likelihood of getting our policies enacted with him than we do with her,” he said, referring to Hillary Clinton.
Ted Cruz (Privately) Questions Donald Trump’s ‘Judgment’ to Be President
In an appearance on Fox News on Wednesday, the same day as the fund-raising luncheon, Mr. Cruz said he liked and respected Mr. Trump and “I don’t anticipate that changing at all.”
“The reason why I won’t get engaged in personal insults and attacks, I don’t think the American people care about a bunch of politicians bickering like schoolchildren,” said Mr. Cruz, adding at another point, “I’m grateful Donald Trump is running.”
.. Mr. Cruz has been notable in a field that has grappled with how to handle Mr. Trump for his refusal to publicly criticize his opponent. Mr. Cruz and his team, who covet Mr. Trump’s supporters, are also keenly aware of the searing criticisms that Mr. Trump has lobbed at rivals who went after him. Those attacks have precipitated a decline in some of their standings in the polls.
The Cowardice of the Republican Candidates
Give Donald Trump this: He has taught Americans something about the candidates he’s running against. He has exposed many of them as political cowards.
.. Yet he didn’t call Trump’s proposals immoral or bigoted, since that might offend Trump’s nativist base. Instead, Bush declared: “Mr. Trump’s plans are not grounded in conservative principles. His proposal is unrealistic. It would cost hundreds of billions of dollars.” In other words, demonizing and rounding up undocumented Mexican immigrants is fine, so long as it’s done cheap.
.. John Dickerson asked Bush about a statement by one of Bush’s advisers that Trump’s plan for registering Muslims is “fascist.” Bush ignored the question. Instead he called Trump “uninformed,” “wrong on Syria,” and “not a serious leader.” The strategy was clear: Avoid defending the rights of Muslim Americans, since there’s little market for that among GOP primary voters. Instead, call Trump a lightweight and insufficiently hawkish, and therefore somehow get to his right.
.. So when the would-be leader of your country scapegoats and threatens its most vulnerable groups, the correct response is to “take a deep breath” because such threats will never be carried out?
.. There’s an irony here. When it comes to Vladimir Putin, ISIS, and Iran, the GOP candidates love denouncing “appeasement.” Yet when it comes to Trump, appeasement is their core strategy. They’re desperate to stop him. But they won’t call him a demagogue or a bigot or worse than Hillary Clinton, because that entails political risk.