Republicans have themselves to blame for Donald Trump

This story appears in the Election 2016 feature series. View the full series.

by Mario T. García

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The so-called Republican establishment created Donald Trump.

These Republicans, such as Mitt Romney, are now launching attacks on Trump as they fear that he will win enough delegates to become the presidential nominee. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz in the recent debates have finally begun to criticize Trump for his bad-boy behavior and his outrageous verbal assaults on them and other candidates. The mainstream media in turn seems to suggest that more moderate conservatives (whatever that means) are panicked about Trump. 

But is this is all wrong. 

The Republican establishment, as witnessed in the U.S. Congress and in many states, has moved toward an extreme right-wing direction, evident in their embrace of the tea party agenda of opposing President Barack Obama at every level. It is this establishment that has directly and indirectly questioned the legitimacy of the Obama presidency with racial undertows and that has blocked all efforts at compromise on almost every issue from healthcare to immigration.

It was the Republican establishment that in 2013 stopped the federal government from doing its job, insisting that Obamacare be repealed. It was Republicans who enjoyed it when one of their representatives shouted out “You lie!” during the president’s 2009 State of the Union address, which is something Trump might do.

The Republicans nationally and at the state and local levels have encouraged this sense that the country is under assault by “politically correct” Democrats and that it is time to take “our country back.” They created the racist, nativist and bigoted conditions that has led to Trump, so it is ironic that some are decrying what they themselves created.

It is a sad state of affairs to see what the Republicans have come to but they deserve it. They deserve Trump, and they will get Trump. And they will be defeated in November as most Americans recoil from this embarrassing and unacceptable slide not only into mediocrity but shameful behavior. 

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