This blog recently has discussed the severe criticism of Donald Trump by a Wall Street Journal editor and by other conservatives and Republicans. Another longtime conservative commentator, George Will, also has aggressively condemned Donald Trump, both before and after the latter’s July 21 Republican presidential nomination. Moreover, in June, when Trump was the presumptive nominee, George Will changed his party affiliation from Republican to “unaffiliated” because of Trump.[1]
Here are at least seven of these condemnations by Mr. Will.
Pre- Nomination
1.Donald Trump relishes wrecking the GOP[2]
Trump “boasts of his sexual athleticism, embraces torture and promises to kill terrorists’ families.” He has “ myriad [religious] conversions-of-convenience.” More importantly for Will, Trump has disavowed Will’s conservative milestones by liking the Obamacare mandate and by opposing Social Security reform and reductions.
2. The albatross of a Trump endorsement[3]
“Trump’s distinctive rhetorical style — think of a drunk with a bullhorn reading aloud James Joyce’s ‘Finnegans Wake’ under water — poses an almost insuperable challenge to people whose painful duty is to try to extract clarity from his effusions.”
“Trump, the thin-skinned tough guy, . . . has neither respect for nor knowledge of the Constitution, and he probably is unaware that he would have to ‘open up’ many Supreme Court First Amendment rulings in order to achieve his aim. . . . [of chilling] free speech, for the comfort of the political class, of which he is now a gaudy ornament.”
Trump, “whose breadth of . . . ignorance is the eighth wonder of the world, actually thinks that judges ‘sign’ bills. Trump is a presidential aspirant who would flunk an eighth-grade civics exam”
3. Do Republicans really think Donald Trump will make a good Supreme Court choice?[4]
Trump is “a stupendously uninformed dilettante who thinks judges ‘sign’ what he refers to as ‘bills.’ There is every reason to think that Trump understands none of the issues pertinent to the Supreme Court’s role in the American regime, and there is no reason to doubt that he would bring to the selection of justices what he brings to all matters — arrogance leavened by frivolousness.”
“Trump’s multiplying Republican apologists do not deny the self-evident — that he is as clueless regarding everything as he is about the nuclear triad.”
4. If Trump is nominated, the COP must keep him out of the White House?[5]
“Donald Trump’s damage to the Republican Party, although already extensive, has barely begun. Republican quislings will multiply, slinking into support of the most anti-conservative presidential aspirant in their party’s history. These collaborationists will render themselves ineligible to participate in the party’s reconstruction.”
“If Trump is nominated, Republicans working to purge him and his manner from public life will reap the considerable satisfaction of preserving the identity of their 162-year-old party while working to see that they forgo only four years of the enjoyment of executive power.”
5. How entangled with Russia is Trump?[6]
After bewailing Trump’s many statements supporting Russia and Putin, Will says it “is unclear whether any political idea leavens the avarice of Trump and some of his accomplices regarding today’s tormented and dangerous Russia. Speculation about the nature and scale of Trump’s financial entanglements with Putin and his associates is justified by Trump’s refusal to release his personal and business tax information. Obviously he is hiding something, and probably more than merely embarrassing evidence that he has vastly exaggerated his net worth and charitableness.”
Post- Nomination
6. Trump’s shallowness runs deep [7]
Trump’s “speeches are . .syntactical train wrecks. . . . [He] rarely finishes a sentence. . . . [But maybe] he actually is a sly rascal, cunningly in pursuit of immunity through profusion.
“The nation, however, is . . . [being damaged] by Trump’s success in normalizing post-factual politics. It is being poisoned by the injection into its bloodstream of the cynicism required of those Republicans who persist in pretending that although Trump lies constantly and knows nothing, these blemishes do not disqualify him from being president.”
7. The sinking fantasy that Trump would defend the constitution,[8]
According to Will, “Trump knows nothing about current debates concerning the [Supreme Court’s]. . . proper role.”
Moreover, Trump has erroneous views on what Will regards as “the two most important [Supreme Court] decisions this century.
Trump has criticized Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), which held corporations have a first amendment free speech right to make financial political contributions and which Will favors on the ground that “Americans do not forfeit their free-speech rights when they band together in corporate form to magnify their political advocacy.”
The other case, Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005), held, 5-4, that a municipal government “behaved constitutionally when it bulldozed a residential neighborhood for the ‘public use’ of transferring the land to a corporation that would pay more taxes than the neighborhood’s residents paid to the government.” For Trump, his “interests as a developer and a big-government authoritarian converge in his enthusiasm for Kelo.” Will, however, thinks this decision “did radical damage to property rights.”
In addition, Will decries President Obama’s use of executive orders, which Trump promises to expand.
Conclusion
Although I disagree with George Will on the various political issues he discusses in these columns, I do endorse his condemnation of Donald Trump’s temperament, judgment and knowledge.
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[1] Diaz, George Will: Trump’s judge comments prompted exit from GOP, CNN (June 21, 2016).
[2] Will, Donald Trump relishes wrecking the GOP, Wash. Post (Feb. 21, 2016).
[3] Will, The albatross of a Trump endorsement. Wash. Post (Feb. 28. 2016).
[4] Will, Do Republicans really think Donald Trump will make a good Supreme Court choice, Wash. Post ( March 18, 2016).
[5] Will, If Trump is nominated, the GOP must keep him out of the White House, Wash. Post (April 29, 2016).
[6] Will, How entangled with Russia is Trump?, Wash. Post (July 29, 2016).
[7] Will, Trump’s shallowness runs deep, Wash. Post (Aug. 3, 2016).
[8] Will, The sinking fantasy that Trump would defend the constitution, Wash. Post (Aug. 5, 2016).
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