Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Sunday, April 10, 2016

The Boston Globe Publishes Front Page Based On What A Trump Presidency Would Be Like

I'm placing this above today's Sunday Science Blog because it is unusual and timely.

The Boston Globe published a front page today based on Donald Trump's own words and promises on what he would do if he were elected president.

The editorial page then urges the Republican Party to do the honorable thing and stop Trump from getting the GOP nomination, suggesting the GOP support either Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan as its nominee.

Unusual -- I've never seen this done in my lifetime, but I've never seen a candidate as extreme and dangerous as Donald J. Trump in my lifetime either.

Whether you agree with the Boston Globe or not, it gets your attention and and it certainly should get you thinking about what a colossal  disaster Trump would be for our country and the planet.



Globe editorial:

The GOP must stop Trump
DONALD J. TRUMP’S VISION for the future of our nation is as deeply disturbing as it is profoundly un-American.
It is easy to find historical antecedents. The rise of demagogic strongmen is an all too common phenomenon on our small planet. And what marks each of those dark episodes is a failure to fathom where a leader’s vision leads, to carry rhetoric to its logical conclusion. The satirical front page of this section attempts to do just that, to envision what America looks like with Trump in the White House.
It is an exercise in taking a man at his word. And his vision of America promises to be as appalling in real life as it is in black and white on the page. It is a vision that demands an active and engaged opposition. It requires an opposition as focused on denying Trump the White House as the candidate is flippant and reckless about securing it.
After Wisconsin, the odds have shrunk that Trump will arrive in Cleveland with the requisite 1,237 delegates needed to win the nomination outright. Yet if he’s denied that nomination for falling short of the required delegates, Trump has warned, “You’d have riots. I think you’d have riots.” Indeed, who knows what Trump’s fervent backers are capable of if emboldened by the defeat of their strongman at the hands of the hated party elite.
But the rules are the rules — and if no candidate reaches that magic number, the job of choosing a nominee falls to those on the convention floor.
That’s not a pretty picture. But then nothing about the billionaire real estate developer’s quest for the nation’s highest office has been pretty. He winks and nods at political violence at his rallies. He says he wants to “open up” libel laws to punish critics in the news media and calls them “scum.” He promised to shut out an entire class of immigrants and visitors to the United States on the sole basis of their religion.
The toxic mix of violent intimidation, hostility to criticism, and explicit scapegoating of minorities shows a political movement is taking hold in America. If Trump were a politician running such a campaign in a foreign country right now, the US State Department would probably be condemning him.
Realizing that the party faces a double bind, a few conservatives have been clear-eyed enough to see the need for a plausible, honorable alternative that could emerge from the likely contested convention. Names like Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney have come up. If no candidate gets a majority on the convention’s first ballot, such a nomination might be theoretically possible.
This would have no modern precedent: Ordinarily, parties put aside their differences after primaries and rally to the front-runner because they share basic common goals and values. In any other election cycle, anti-Trump Republicans would just look like sore losers. But Trump lacks those common values — not just the values of Republicans but, it becomes clearer every day, those of Democrats.
House Speaker Ryan spoke to the possible long-term damage with which the party is flirting. “Leaders with different visions and ideas have come and gone; parties have risen and fallen; majorities and White Houses won and lost,” he said. “But the way we govern endures: through debate, not disorder.” The problem is that Trump has already crossed lines that a politician with a sincere commitment to democratic norms must never cross.
At some point, after the election, Republicans will also need to ask themselves some tough questions about how their actions and inactions made the party vulnerable to Trump. After all, a candidate spewing anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, authoritarian rhetoric didn’t come out of nowhere; the Tea Party has been strong enough long enough that someone like him shouldn’t be a surprise. Chasing short-term political gains, the GOP missed a lot of chances to fight the hateful currents that now threaten to overwhelm it.
For now, Republicans ought to focus on doing the right thing: putting up every legitimate roadblock to Trump that they can. Unexpectedly, a key moment in American democracy has snuck up on the GOP. When he denounced Trump, Romney said he wanted to be able to say he’d fought the good fight against a demagogue. That’s the test other Republicans may want to consider.
Action doesn’t mean political chicanery or subterfuge. It doesn’t mean settling for an equally extreme — and perhaps more dangerous — nominee in Ted Cruz. If the party can muster the courage to reject its first-place finisher, rejecting the runner-up should be even easier.


The Republican Party’s standard deserves to be hoisted by an honorable and decent man, like Romney or Ryan, elected on the convention floor. It is better to lose with principle than to accept a dangerous deal from a demagogue.

18 comments:

Shaw Kenawe said...


Pm Carpenter mostly agrees with the Globe, but with some salient reservations:

"Yet just before this condemnatory passage comes what I see as the downside. The editors write rather approvingly of Speaker Paul Ryan, who has "spoke[n] to the possible long-term damage with which the party is flirting. 'Leaders with different visions and ideas have come and gone; parties have risen and fallen; majorities and White Houses won and lost,' he said. 'But the way we govern endures: through debate, not disorder.'"

Whatever it is the congressional GOP has been doing for the past seven years, debate and orderly governance have not been part of it — and Paul Ryan has been in the thick of it. He has been but one segment of the monolith of obstructionism that has converted his party into Banana Republicanism and thrown traditional American governance into the ashcan of futility.

There has been more, far more, than the GOP's embrace of its Tea-Partying Sarah Palins and Ted Cruzes and Donald Trumps which led to its missed "chances to fight the hateful currents that now threaten to overwhelm it." These forces and their accompanying sentiments were allies, of course. But it was the GOP establishment — its Ryans, its John Boehners, its Mitch McConnells — that chose to obstruct all things Obamian and inflict utter devastation on the norms of the American political system.

The Tea Partiers were helpful, destructive little elves, but it was the bloated Santa of GOP establishmentarianism that gifted the system with political abominations heaped on political depravities. To now reference Ryan in terms approaching the glowing is merely another abomination."


Les Carpenter said...

The GOP must stop Trump

Correction... Real Americans must stop Drumpf. The GOP is incapable of stopping the demolition train it spawned and sectioned.

Anonymous Reader of TeaPublican Blogs said...


shaw, your opposition bloggers are in a tizzy because of yesterday's Globe's. They're calling the satire propaganda. What escaped them is the fact that the spoof of what a Trump presidency would be like if America took him at his word is on the opinion pages not the news pages. Then they wonder when the globe will do the same to Hillary. Ha! Yeah. Cuz Hillary is as extreme a candidate as Trump. Did Hillary threaten to deport 11 million people with no plan on how she was going to do that. Did Hillary brag about building a big beautiful wall and make Mexico pay for it? Did Hillary promise to keep out an entire group of people just because of their religion (which is anti-American), did Hillary incite violence at her rallys and offer to pay the legal costs of anyone who punches a protester?

Hillary may not be everyone's choice for the presidency, but she doesn't come close to the lunacy of who the Tea Party GOP is supporting. Even sane Republicans detest him as does every important voting block: women, Latinos, Asians, African-Americans, young people, Muslims, gays, and mentally healthy Americans.

The Globe did us a favor by putting into headlines what Donald Trump promises he'd do to America is America is insane enough to make him the president -- PS. He won't be president, but the people hoping he will are so rabid about him they refuse to see how toxic a candidate he is.

In fact, a majority of people trust Hillary more than they trust Trump! Suck on that Tea Party.

Paula said...




The Tea Party GOPers don't know the difference between propaganda and satire? The poorly educated are Trump's biggest fans, so Q.E.D.

Les Carpenter said...





Hillary Clinton has edge over Donald Trump on range of issues

Shaw Kenawe said...

Pm Carpenter:

"Donald Trump, who appears to have been under the singular impression that major political parties' delegate allocation is a purely straight-up, democratic affair. It's astounding, really, when you stop to think about it. Here is the shrewd businessman who wrote The Art of the Deal — second only to the Bible in introspective brilliance, says he — and yet he never bothered to investigate the rough-and-tumble mechanisms of the greatest negotiated deal of his life.

While The Donald was huckstering reprints of his 1987 book, Ted Cruz was penning "The Art of the Steal" — and all of it perfectly legal. Republicans are forever extolling the indispensable merits of business experience as applied to presidential governance, and yet Cruz, who has not spent a day of his slithering existence in private industry, is, in the delegate chase, beating the Brioni pants off of Donald Trump.

The latter compounded the hilarity with this line of Trumpian logic: "I think we're going to be fine. We're doing really well, but we've got to have a system where voting means something."

By "doing really well," Trump meant that he is racking up more votes than Cruz and Kasich and this, therefore, is what will position him in a really "fine" state. Does that not mean, then, that "voting" indeed "means something"? I'm a trifle confused on this point.

What is exceptionally clear, however, is the meaning of Trump's additional observation:

And I say this to the RNC and I say this to the Republican Party: You're going to have a big problem folks, because there are people who don't like what's going on.

Calling Roger Stone & Goons."


Shaw Kenawe said...


RN, I don't think the GOP will be able to stop the train wreck they started. The party thought it was invincible in their sell-out to the whackos in their base. The inmates truly have taken over the asylum. And the craziest inmate is The Trumper.

ARoTPB, you have to remember that the people you speak of are the BASE of the GOP and they live in a bubble, which precludes their understanding satire of anything having to do with the Tea Party and its stars. Numerous op-ed writers have written fictive letters in the "voice" of any number of politicians and, clearly, people reading these op-ed columns understand that it's SATIRE, not propaganda. As someone said, that distinction may be over their heads. That and their obsession with Both Siderism -- what happens to Trump should happen to Hillary, as though Hillary is as insane as Trump. Clearly she is not. Other issues? Of course she has other issues, but she is a savvy politician and knows better than to make moronic claims (building a wall and making Mexico pay for it -- killing the families of terrorists, for just two examples) that every normal person knows is pure Trumpian B.S. Everyone knows except his easily duped supporters, who are fed up with lying politicians and so they support the biggest liar of this presidential cycle -- and probably of all time.

Free Twinkies,

See above.

A Proud Progressive said...



Seems we have a country full of misogynists. Hillary's liberal past is no different than Trumps,yet we have a segment of our electorate who just refuse to listen to Hillary's ideas, agenda, proposals that would be the same as Cruz. Bernie says the same things too except in a more extreme manner, I find it difficult to believe anything he says could become reality. And I don't believe he could win the general. After all the campaigning is over the people will go to the polls and vote for the centrist. That's where this country is most comfortable. This revolution talk is laughable, IMO.

It's just a shame Hillary has to climb a huge mountain simply because she is a strong, articulate, accomplished and qualified woman!

Anonymous said...

The problem with 'stopping Trump' is that the rest of the field is even worse. Why would any sane individual see granny starver Paul Ryan, or Mittens the car elevator man, Romnoid as improvements?

Shaw Kenawe said...


Anonymous @3:18, I agree. I hope The Trumper get the nomination because he does the worst against both Democrats. Let's hope Trump is the nominee.

APP, many people agree with you. The Tea Party candidates, Trump and Cruz, make Hillary look like a better choice. I'm not sure John Kasich has enough delegates to get the nomination.

anymouse said...

I'm just sitting back watching the right totally destroy itself and i'm loving every second of it. Never before has a bunch worked so hard to discredit, to slime and to belittle the opposition as has the low-iq right wing of the USA. Truly, they deserve the humiliation they are going through at the hands of Drumpf. The hysterical thing is that many are even starting to line up behind him, thus throwing away each and every 'conservative' principle they claimed to stand for! Drumpf is no more 'conservative' than I am and I am, thankfully, NOT a conservative and find nothing worthy in that line of reasoning.
So, I'll just spend the next few months laughing and enjoying the misery faced by the bunch that brought us 'birtherism,' 'Benghazigate', 'Climate Change isn't real', and dozens of other proof positives that they are mentally defective liars with no real platform other than racism and bigotry. Bye bye right wing. It has NOT been fun knowing you and you will NOT be missed.

Ducky's here said...

It remains to be seen if the Republicans can find a way out (forget graceful way out) of this mess without steaming off a large portion of the base and really hurting themselves down ticket as well as losing the presidential.

I still don't know what explains this martinet being the party front runner. Is it just a subset of the Teabag base that has been whipped into a lather by rabies media?

skudrunner said...

Shaw
There is only one democrat running and she is the anointed one. A admitted liar, totally dishonest and has very few accomplishments especially as SS, can you name one.
The other candidate is not a democrat but an independent. You can sleep well at night because -H- will win and nothing will change. We will continue the no growth blame game of the last seven years, that is according to BC, and one side will be upset.
The republicans cannot win with trump or cruz, ryan possibly but that won't happen.

Shaw Kenawe said...

I can name some of Hillary's accomplishments:


1. Her China speech on women.

2. Her role in killing Osama bin Laden.

3. Management of the State Department during which time we saw a 50 percent increase in exports to China, aggressive work on climate (particularly at Copenhagen), and the effort to create and implement the toughest sanctions ever on Iran—helping to lead us to the agreement currently on the table.

Hillary Clinton was the principal author of the sanction on Iran that brought them to the table.


Few SoS accomplish earth-shattering things while in office. Most of them work on behalf of the U.S. and its interests around the globe.

Funny. I never heard a Gooper ask what Condolezza Rice's accomplishments were while SoS when some on the right wanted her to run for the presidency. Can you name one?



Actually, skud, it is the GOP front-runner who has told the most lies during this presidential election cycle, not Hillary Clinton. So you're wrong again, as usual. You really need to get out of your bubble and experience the real world and not listen to the little "I Hate Hillary" voices in your head.

HILLARY CLINTON IS MORE HONEST THAN ANY OF HER 2016 OPPONENTS.



skudrunner said...

Seriously, he role in killing OBL.
She is so popular that she is running unopposed as a democrat and having to fend off her only challenger who is not a democrat. It does seem that I am not alone in thinking -H- is not who I would choose.

I do agree that the choices for president are disgusting. The interesting thing will be if -H- is indited, a slim possibility since obama has her back, how many yellow dogs will vote for her.

Shaw Kenawe said...

skud, you have zero evidence to back up your sleazy lie that suggests President Obama would obstruct justice to cover for Hillary. You're just like a junior high schooler who passes along any rumor he hears about a classmate he's jealous of and doesn't care if there's any truth to the rumor as long as it hurts the victim.

You're a hopeless cynic, suggesting, without any evidence, that this president, (whose administration has been far, far cleaner and freer from scandal than the saintly Ronald Reagan's administration), would commit an impeachable crime, just because you lust to see Hillary vanquished.

Wishing for that will not make it so. The fact is that Hillary has been found to be more honest than any of her competitors on the right in this election cycle. That seems not to matter to you, so long as you can throw shyte at her, hoping some of it will stick.

Hillary's been through worse than this, survived and done very well for herself. I don't know yet who I favor for the Dems, but I do know that if Hillary survives the rabid, rotten slings and arrows the TeaPublicans have been aiming at her this time around (and no doubt she will survive -- she always has), she'll be able to face anything our crazed maniacal enemies throw at us as a country.

The TeaPublicans haven't been able to defeat her after trying to do so for the past 25 years. Like her or not, she is one tough woman, unlike the little pouty Donald who pisses, moans, and goes on a Twitter war with anyone who say "Nyah, Nyah" to him. Our enemies would eat him for breakfast, grind up and swallow his bones as well if the little wuss were ever to make it to the White House (he won't).

Rational Nation USA said...

skud, just once why not do your homework and cite a credible source (preferably with a link) to support your innuendos and rightwing talking points? I for one would be interested in any evidence you have. HRC certainly gives me pause skud, as a politician she has no doubt been less than completely honest. What politician hasn't? But her less than total honesty pales when compared to that of Trump and Cruz.

2016 may not have an ideal candidate running in either party but the republican party offers nothing at all really. Unless one supports xenophobia, rampant nationalism, and trying to take America back to those idyllic days of the 50's .

anymouse said...

Are the right wingers really counting on Hillary being indicted? HAHAHA It's NEVER going to happen because A. anything transmitted was not considered secret when sent (that happened much later), B. She wasn't aware that anything transmitted would become rated secret one day (Who could know such a thing?) and C. This is just yet another in a long line of pipe-dreams the right has counted on for decades with zero facts to back up their assertions. It's what passes for a platform for the Republiclowns, these days.