I’m trying to understand an admonition that’s coming from leading Republican officeholders, strategists and assorted loyalist as it pertains to the party’s presumed presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump.
They want him to “change.” They dislike the name-calling, the insults, the innuendo, the reckless riffs that pour forth whenever he takes the podium as he campaigns for the presidency.
If he changes, they say, they might be able to endorse him. They might actually campaign for him. They’ll support the candidate more than in name only.
I keep wondering: How does a man who’s nearly 70 years of age do that?
What’s more, how do Americans who’ve heard the astonishing things that he’s said ignore them if — and this remains a y-u-u-u-u-g-e stretch — Trump actually becomes a more presentable candidate for president?
It’s like the judge in a trial who tells a jury to “disregard what you’ve just heard” from a criminal defendant or from a prosecuting attorney. Sure thing, Your Honor. We’ll just blot that out of our memory.
House Speaker Paul Ryan has endorsed Trump, but with reservations. He dislikes intensely the candidate’s racist views on U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel and his assertion that Curiel’s heritage disqualifies him from presiding over a lawsuit brought against Trump over his defunct “university.”
Ryan has called Trump’s assertions “racist” in nature, but he’s going to support him.
A lot of Americans — millions of them, in fact — aren’t going to forget those comments. They won’t forget the insults Trump has hurled at women, or his mocking of a reporter’s physical disability, or his assertion that Sen. John McCain is a war hero “because he got captured” by the North Vietnamese.
They won’t forget his plan to ban all Muslims from entering the United States, or his claim that illegal immigrants are coming here to commit crimes.
And then we have the lies, such as when he said he witnessed “thousands upon thousands of Muslims” cheering when the Twin Towers tumbled down on 9/11.
So, he’s supposed to “change” the way he campaigns to make himself more suitable to voters.
How does that happen?