The Vile, Disgusting Trump Does Represent the GOP

Dear Democrats- Just stop. Stop now. I know, it doesn't feel right to stop, but do it. This is the equivalent of eating your carrots instead of eating cake, but you have to do it. Stop fighting with the Donald Trump supporters. Stop attacking him. For real, stop. Like, yesterday, stop.

1. You're giving oxygen to this xenophobic egomaniac. You're making him relevant. Conservatives like to fight with liberals, it's part of their mindset. It's part of "taking America back" and stuff. When you attack Trump, you pull them to his defense. Just stop.
2. We want Trump to win the Republican nomination. Donald Trump only exasperates the GOP's problem, which is that they really only win amongst older, whiter, more male voters. When you have a candidate who literally spews white nationalist rhetoric, that gets worse.
3. Trump is not actually any worse than the rest of the Republican field. Is his rhetoric more shameful? Sure. That just means he doesn't have a speech writer to smooth over the roughness. He's not dog-whistling to the lunatics, he's just straight out talking to them. He actually won't govern much differently than Marco Rubio, if either reached office, so let's not pretend he's special.

Of course, none of this is to say that i'm not disgusted by Donald Trump. Yesterday, he actually called for an unconstitutional ban on Muslims coming to America. It's vile, and it's disgusting. It's only slightly worse than the rest of the Republicans though. Marco Rubio called for a "clash of civilizations" with Islam. Jeb Bush's campaign basically called President Obama a terrorist sympathizer. Ted Cruz called for "carpet bombing" areas of the Middle East, which is a war crime. While none of the other candidates have called for a ban on Muslims coming to the U.S., many of them have called for an end to refugees coming here, temporary or permanent, or worse yet, a "religious test" on who gets to seek refugee status here. This is a vile, disgusting group of people. Donald Trump might be slightly worse than the rest because he's stoking fear and hatred, and scapegoating a religion. Donald is also running for President:

Trump's support is strongest with Republicans in the Midwest, conservatives across the country who do not have a college degree and (perhaps not surprisingly) those who report the most negative views of immigration and Mexican immigrants in particular, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released last week.

To be more blunt, Donald is reaching out to the GOP base. The uneducated and the angry love what he has to say. To be clear here though, those same people voted for Mitt Romney, loved Sarah Palin, and were pulling the whole family out to vote for George W. Bush, twice. They would vote for Ted Cruz, and they in fact like him. They would vote for Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, and Jeb Bush. In truth, all of these individuals are fairly similar in their rhetoric, their views, and the policy statements they release.

So please, stop singling out Donald Trump. Please stop treating him as "worse" than the other Republicans. All of them would reject comprehensive immigration reform, even if they won't talk about "building a wall" right now. All of them would continue to let terrorism suspects buy guns. All of them would ban refugees from Syria from coming here. All of them are pretty similar. Donald Trump is actually a good representation of the GOP.