Column by Michael Reagan
“You can’t be a Trump Republican and a Ronald Reagan Republican.”
That’s the tweet I sent to Jeb Bush the other day, when virtually the entire planet was united in bashing Donald Trump’s call for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration to the USA.
I also tweeted another obvious truth, “If the Republican Party doesn’t dump Donald Trump, the American people will.”
Trump’s outrageous “Muslims, Keep Out” plan–apparently his policy answer to last week’s terrorist attack in San Bernadino, CA,–is an embarrassment to our Country and what it stands for.
It’s also a serious threat to the Republican Party….It’s being used by Hillary, Democrat hacks in Congress, and the Big Liberal Media to smear the GOP as the party of bigots and idiots.
Completely shutting down Muslim immigration is the latest–and probably the worst–idea in a series of awful ideas that Trump throws out, whenever he feels he’s not getting enough media attention.
He launched his political career by promising he’d “solve” the immigration problem, by rounding up 11 million Hispanics and other illegals and tossing them out of the Country.
Now he’s attacking 1.2 billion Muslims. Who will be his next target? Three billion Asians?
Trump is awful for America and for the Republican Party. But we’ve known that for months.
What bothers me even more than the stupid things the billionaire says, however, are the cheers I hear from the crowds at his packed events.
I know those hardcore Trump Yahoos are not all Republicans or conservatives. But when they go nuts over something as idiotic as Trump’s plan to keep out Muslims, it’s scary to me–very scary.
Someone needs to tell the Trump Yahoos we’re not in a war against the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims.
We’re in a war against radical Islam and the barbaric terrorists who’ve decided that their 8th Century interpretation of their religion gives them the duty to declare a bloody holy war on Western Civilization.
By the way, most Muslims are at war against the radical Islamists, too, mainly because they’re the ones who are getting killed by ISIS in the biggest numbers.
Many Trump Yahoos are just as confused about what conservatism really is.
If one more person comes up to me and says, “I loved your father [President Ronald Reagan,] and I’m supporting Donald Trump,” I may hit him.
Trump is nothing like my father. My father united people. That’s why he won elections. Trump doesn’t unite anyone but confused white people.
Republicans are always the minority party. The only way we ever win a General Election is by bringing people together: Ronald Reagan Democrats and conservative Latinos, Blacks, Asians, and Muslims.
Yes, there are conservative Muslims. Or at least there were. In 2000, nearly 80 percent of American Muslims voted for George W. Bush.
If the Republican Party nominates Donald Trump, it’s certain that Hillary will become the next President, and we’ll all lose.
Trump is in the process of killing what’s left of my father’s GOP. He spends most of his time throwing people off the Republican bus, not inviting them on it.
The GOP has to find a way to stop Trump. It has to nominate a real Republican, a real conservative, who can unite the party around its core principles and show the Country that Republicans are nothing like the Donald.
If the Party of Lincoln can’t dump Trump and go back to its conservative roots, by next fall we’ll be hearing my father say from his grave, “I didn’t leave the Republican Party, they left me.”