Donald Trump has become the standard-bearer of the Republican Party, defeating all 16 other GOP presidential candidates ahead of Tuesday’s California primary. Now, the majority of them support him, as do other prominent Republicans and millions of American voters who see in him hope after years of feeling left out or left behind by a country changing too much too quickly in a time of too little prosperity.
Yet, there are so many ways Trump is unfit to lead the free world. Just days ago, in San Diego, Trump singled out U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel’s handling of a case involving Trump University — and Curiel’s heritage. Of the Indiana-born ex-U.S. prosecutor who once prosecuted Mexican cartels, Trump said Curiel “happens to be, we believe, Mexican, which is great, I think that’s fine.”
We believe in a more unifying message.
The San Diego Union-Tribune editorial board is torn about advising our Republican readers. We can’t endorse Trump for reasons we’ve documented repeatedly: belligerence, casual cruelty, incoherence on policy issues. We can’t recommend voters don’t vote at all because that’s a waste, and we can’t suggest voting for another candidate because it accomplishes nothing.
So, what do Republicans who don’t accept Trump’s style or substance do? Certainly, the Republican Party has an argument for the presidency. Today, the principles of the party of Ronald Reagan are as relevant as ever: a stable border, a strong military and economic policy focused on low taxes, less bureaucracy and limited regulation.
Those are not the principles of Trump, who promises to build a border wall, recommends torture and killing terrorists’ families and speculates about reneging on our debts. What would happen to Reagan’s party in the hands of Trump? What would happen to San Diego?
We live near the busiest border crossing in the Western Hemisphere, among one of the world’s heaviest concentrations of military personnel. Our border allows a dangerous trade in drugs and guns, and an underground worker economy, while it also enables billions of dollars in trade and cultural connections. We are one of the world’s safest cities, yet two of the 9/11 terrorists lived among us before flying a plane into the Pentagon. We are stereotyped as white and predictable; yet 30 languages and 80 dialects are spoken — and celebrated — in the City Heights neighborhood alone.
Ours is a city of complexity and balance, of possibility. Everyone wants to live in America’s finest city. But neither problems nor opportunities improve with sloganeering or demagoguery.
Reagan never gave a speech that didn’t invoke America’s greatness. “Tear down this wall,” the Great Communicator famously once said. “The wall cannot withstand freedom.”
Trump is the Great Excommunicator. He wants Muslims banned from the country; a wall built around our southern border; global deals ripped up and renegotiated; American made “great again” through isolationism.
In his San Diego campaign speech, Trump urged California supporters to vote for him, saying, “We want the mandate. We have to have a mandate.”
He doesn’t deserve the party’s mandate.
If you are voting in the GOP primary Tuesday, write in Ronald Reagan for president.
Maybe Trump will get the message.
— The San Diego Union-Tribune
