 |
America's
Trump nightmare has arrived
Lucia Graves
Wednesday 4 May 2016
04.00 BST
‘It’s
been an unbelievable day and evening and year’, Trump said at the
beginning of his acceptance speech. Unbelievable is one word for it
Donald Trump could
actually be the next president. Just let that sink in.
This is a man who
actively demeans women, has encouraged violence at his campaign
rallies, would ban all Muslims from entering the US and recently
seemed undisturbed by an endorsement from a leader of the Ku Klux
Klan. And yet Trump, a political outsider, is poised to grasp the
highest office in the land.
It was never
supposed to happen. But here we are. Tonight in Indiana, in the
primary that nobody thought would matter, the thing that nobody
thought possible a year ago, is really coming to pass. Donald Trump
is going to clinch the Republican nomination. He is really winning,
like he always says. Only it’s not a joke or catchy mantra – it’s
reality.
And even he seems to
understand how absurd that is. “It’s been an unbelievable day and
evening and year,” Trump said at the beginning of his acceptance
speech.
Unbelievable is one
word for it.
After the race was
called from Trump on Tuesday night, Ted Cruz, the only thing standing
between him and the nomination, suspended his campaign.
This was never
supposed to happen. Early polling had showed a tight race between
Trump and Cruz. And Cruz had thrown everything he had at the contest,
from money, to a newsy presidential pick and a non-aggression pact
with John Kasich. Even up until tonight’s election, insiders
continued to insist that delegate math would protect the party from
Trump’s nomination.
But suddenly with
Cruz’s announcement, the specter of a contested convention fell
away and the Republican primary was a one-man show. A big, orange,
frightening one-man show.
Beaming at his
audience on stage in the Trump Tower, he heaped lavish praise on
people he’s disparaged the most, from women – he’s called them
“dogs” and “fat pigs” – to Cruz himself, whom he recently
declared “everyone hates.”
“He is a tough
smart competitor”, Trump said of Cruz. Nevermind what’s honest,
Trump has never been concerned with that.
The relationship
between the two men has always been politically transparent, and
tonight was no exception. After all, Trump will need to win over
Cruz’s evangelical base if he’s ever going to beat Hillary
Clinton in a general election. So with Cruz out of the race, he went
from being Trump’s Opponent-in-Chief to being his Ally-in-Chief.
And he does have
some support in such shenanigans. No sooner had Cruz stepped aside
then Republican chairman Reince Priebus tried to get out ahead of the
narrative by calling for the party to unite behind Trump.
“@realDonaldTrump will be presumptive @GOP nominee, we all need to
unite and focus on defeating @HillaryClinton #NeverClinton”,
he tweeted. And some like Alabama’s Jeff Sessions have long said
Trump’s just what the party need.
Not everyone’s
on-board (Cruz, in one of his last acts as a presidential candidate,
nuked the billionaire real estate mogul as a “pathological liar”),
but it doesn’t matter anymore.
With all 57 of
Indiana’s delegates under his belt, Trump has a breezy path to the
1,237 count he needs to steer clear of a contested convention in
Cleveland this summer. And he doesn’t have an opponent in sight.
Indiana was the
moment when Cruz said that, if Trump wins again, “America will
plunge into the abyss.” Maybe he was right – November is still a
long way off.
Meanwhile the new
normal in America is a strange reality indeed. Donald Trump is
winning and nobody – not Ted Cruz nor the entire Republican party
working in concert (remember the #NeverTrump crusade?), can
stop him.
|
Trump:
We will win
The
real estate mogul knocks Cruz out of the race and declares he will
lead the GOP to victory in November.
By KYLE CHENEY
5/4/16, 7:23 AM CET
It was the night
Donald Trump broke his enemies.
The real estate
mogul on Tuesday crushed Ted Cruz in Indiana, ejecting the Texas
senator from the race, and declaring from Trump Tower in New York
City that he will lead the GOP to victory in November.
It was a pivotal
moment in a stunning race that has seen the billionaire go from
sideshow laughingstock to the Republican Party’s best hope to
reclaim the White House, despite an intransigent faction that will
never view him as their legitimate leader.
“We’re going to
win in November,” a triumphant Trump announced from his campaign
headquarters, surrounded by his family, adding that it’s time for
the GOP to rally behind him. “We want to bring unity to the
Republican Party. We have to bring unity.”
Republican National
Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, who has occasionally feuded
publicly with Trump, on Tuesday night spoke with Trump by phone and
tweeted out two words that seemed unfathomable 10 months ago:
“presumptive nominee.”
“@realDonaldTrump
will be presumptive @GOP nominee, we all need to unite and focus on
defeating @HillaryClinton #NeverClinton,” Priebus stated.
But evidence of
division was everywhere among establishment Republicans as they
digested the reality of Trump leading the party. The most hardcore
anti-Trump leaders in the party alternated between outwardly
embracing Hillary Clinton – the likely Democratic nominee – and
musing about third-party options, while other Republicans urged the
party to follow the will of the voters.
“Tonight’s
outcome raises seriousness & urgency of discussions about
third-party alternative; how real it is depends on who steps up to
run,” tweeted Lanhee Chen, an adviser to Mitt Romney’s 2012
campaign and to Marco Rubio in 2016.
He was immediately
rebutted by Mississippi RNC Comitteeman Henry Barbour, who replied,
“It’s time to focus on beating Hillary. 3rd party candidate would
guarantee WH for her. Voters have spoken…”
Ari Fleischer, a
former press secretary to President George W. Bush, tweeted, “There’s
a lot about Donald Trump that I don’t like, but I’ll vote for
Trump over Hillary any day.”
Trump appeared ready
to extend olive branches. In a victory speech, he made overtures to
his rivals and offered kind words to the Texas senator just hours
after ridiculing him as a liar who had become “unhinged.”
“Ted Cruz, I don’t
know if he likes me or if he doesn’t like me, but he is one hell of
a competitor,” Trump said. “He is a tough, smart guy. And he has
got an amazing future.”
It was a subtle
acknowledgement of the challenge that Trump will have to solve if
he’s to truly unite the party for the general election. He’s got
stratospheric unfavorable ratings, especially among minority
communities that could be decisive voting blocs in swing states, and
Trump promised to be a great leader for “the Hispanics” and “the
African Americans” in his speech.
“We’re going to
love each other, we’re going to cherish each other. We’re going
to take care of each other and we’re going to have great economic
development,” he said.
Only the nominal
opposition from Ohio Gov. John Kasich stands between Trump and an
unimpeded glide path to the nomination. But Trump was already looking
past the primary and toward the likely matchup against Clinton,
ripping her as tone-deaf on trade and pointing to her husband, Bill
Clinton’s, approval of the NAFTA trade agreement.
Trump’s decisive
Indiana win effectively ended the contest, which was called for Trump
as soon as polls closed. With roughly 90 percent of precincts
reporting, the real estate mogul led with 53.2 percent of the vote,
compared to 36.7 percent for Cruz and 7.5 percent for Kasich. With
the victory, Trump jumped over the 1,000 mark in the delegate race of
the 1,237 he needs to officially clinch the nomination.
For Cruz, the road
ended in Indiana.
“From the
beginning I’ve said that I would continue on as long as there was a
viable path to victory,” Cruz said, with his wife Heidi by his
side. “Tonight I’m sorry to say it appears that path has been
foreclosed.”
“With a heavy
heart but with boundless optimism for the long-term future of our
nation, we are suspending our campaign,” Cruz said, pledging his
liberty-focused movement would live on. He did not mention Trump.
Cruz in recent days
had appeared to be reckoning with his fate, and earlier on Tuesday he
hurled every insult in the book at Trump. He spent his morning
skewering the New York billionaire — “utterly amoral,” “a
serial philanderer,” “a pathological liar” and even ridden with
venereal disease.
But it wasn’t
enough and it only served to underscore the political reality: Trump
was about to deliver a crushing blow to his chance to become
president.
“Ted Cruz is a
desperate candidate trying to save his failing campaign,” Trump
said in response to Cruz’s tirade. “Today’s ridiculous outburst
only proves what I have been saying for a long time, that Ted Cruz
does not have the temperament to be President of the United States.”
With the hope for a
contested convention slipping away, some of the anti-Trump forces
sounded deflated on Tuesday night. “If we nominate Trump, we will
get destroyed…….and we will deserve it” tweeted South Carolina
Sen. Lindsey Graham.
Erick Erickson, an
influential Republican activist who had tried to mobilize an
anti-Trump movement, tweeted on Tuesday night, “I don’t want to
congratulate Hillary Clinton on winning the Presidency tonight, but
she just did.”
But before Cruz quit
the race, other stop-Trump devotees pledged to keep up the fight.
“While tonight’s Indiana primary results increased Donald Trump’s
delegate count, Trump remains short of the 1,237 delegates needed to
win the GOP nomination,” Katie Packer, head of Our Principles PAC,
said in a statement. “We continue to give voice to the belief of so
many Republicans that Trump is not a conservative, does not represent
the values of the Republican Party, cannot beat Hillary Clinton, and
is simply unfit to be President of the United States.”
It’s unclear how
they’ll proceed without a viable opponent for Trump.
Earlier in the
evening, John Weaver, Kasich’s chief strategist, issued a statement
saying that the Ohio governor would remain in the race unless a
candidate reaches 1,237 bound delegates before the convention.
“Tonight’s results are not going to alter Gov. Kasich’s
campaign plans. Our strategy has been and continues to be one that
involves winning the nomination at an open convention,” he said.
But Trump has
already turned his attention to his next target – Clinton. While
the former secretary of state failed to knock Bernie Sanders out of
the race on Tuesday, she has a huge delegate lead and herself has
started talking more about the general election.
John Podesta,
Clinton’s campaign chairman, issued a statement Tuesday evening
that failed to mention Sanders and instead made the case against
Trump.
“Throughout this
campaign, Donald Trump has demonstrated that he’s too divisive and
lacks the temperament to lead our nation and the free world. With so
much at stake, Donald Trump is simply too big of a risk,” he said.
Trump offered up
relatively soft attacks on Clinton during his victory speech, but
made sure to praise Priebus. After months of panning the RNC as
presiding over a “rigged” nomination process, Trump extended kind
words to the RNC chairman, commiserating over the crowded and chaotic
field he had to oversee.
“17 egos,” he
said. “Now I guess he’s down to one.”
Authors:
Kyle Cheney
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário