On the evening of September 26, 2016, I watched the US presidential debate with interest since US presidents do have an impact on my country. After watching the full debate, I was dumbfounded. To be perfectly honest, I just don’t understand why Americans can support Donald Trump for president.
During the evening, my watching of the debate was interrupted when my wife ran into a computer technical problem. When helping her, we phoned a support line to talk to a very delightful young man from Texas. During our time on the phone with him, I mentioned that I was watching their presidential debate to which he responded, “so am I”. A discussion then ensued about the presidential election. What struck my wife and I during the discussion was his remark that it“was scary” what was occurring in the 2016 election. This young man identified himself as a Bernie Sanders supporter and he spoke very highly of Mr. Sanders. He also made mention of our Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, and said (paraphrased), “If only we had someone like your Prime Minister. He is such a cool guy”. I fill with Canadian pride when I hear foreigners praise our PM.
Now as I mentioned, I simply cannot comprehend why Americans support Donald Trump. Despite what Mr. Trump’s surrogates say, this man is a racist, a misogynist, a bigot, a sexist, a liar, and a vain man. Allow me to state my case.
Donald Trump is a racist: A racist is a person who believes that a particular race of people is superior to another. Many of the statements Mr. Trump has made prove this. Drawing from US Weekly’s article, Donald Trump’s Most Offensive and Outrageous Quotes, one of Mr. Trump’s most obvious racist remarks was during his presidential announcement speech in June 2015 when he said, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending the best. They’re not sending you … they’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
Then there is the birther issue. After much discussion about whether President Obama was an American citizen, the President released his birth certificate in 2011. On August 12, 2012, Mr. Trump tweeted, An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that Barack Obama’s birth certificate is a fraud. (see a Bustle article, The 16 Worst Donald Trump Quotes..) The GOP candidate even questioned President Obama’s religion. The Huffington Post reports that Trump said, “He may have one, but there is something on that birth certificate,” he explained, suggesting the document could highlight something the president doesn’t want voters to see. “Maybe religion. Maybe it says he’s a Muslim. I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t want that. Or he may not have one. I will tell you this: if he wasn’t born in this country, it’s one of the great scams of all time.” Sounds like a racist to me.
He is a misogynist. This is a person who dislikes, despises, or is strongly prejudiced against women. Trump wrote in his 2006 book, Trump 101: The Way to Success, “Beauty and elegance, whether in a woman, a building, or a work of art, is not just superficial or something pretty to see.” For Mr. Trump, women have no use except to be objects to be admired.
He also is accused of having called Miss Universe Alicia Machado “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping” after she gained weight in the months after she won the Miss Universe pageant in 1996. That sounds like misogyny to me.
The Republican presidential candidate is a bigot. A bigot is a person who is intolerant toward those holding different opinions. The fact that he has called for a complete ban on Muslims says he is intolerant of Muslims. The point that he intends to build a physical wall on the US-Mexican border says he is intolerant of Hispanic people.
Trump is a sexist. A sexist as defined by Merriam-Webster as behavior or attitudes that foster stereotypes of social roles based on sex. Interestingly, the Lost Angeles Times reports an employee at his California golf club saying, “I had witnessed Donald Trump tell managers many times while he was visiting the club that restaurant hostesses were ‘not pretty enough’ and that they should be fired and replaced with more attractive women,” His comments about Alicia Machado also is evidence of this.
The man is very vain. According to CNN, in August of 2015, he said, “It’s very hard for them to attack me on looks because I’m so good looking.” Or in January of 2016, he said, “I could stand in the middle of 5th avenue and shoot somebody and wouldn’t lose voters”.
On Jimmy Fallon’s The Tonight Show in September 2015 he said, “I think apologizing’s a great thing, but you have to be wrong. I will absolutely apologize, sometime in the hopefully distant future, if I’m ever wrong.” Have you ever heard Trump apologize for anything? I haven’t.
Mr. Trump lies. The New York Times article, The Lies Trump Told, lists 27 lies that the GOP candidate has made that fact checkers have shown to be a falsehood.
Then there is this strange “love in” that Donald Trump seems to have with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In December of 2015, Trump said, “[Putin] is a strong leader…He’s making mincemeat out of our president.”
When the topic of possible Russian involvement in cyberattacks came up during the first debate, Mr. Trump said, “She’s saying Russia, Russia, Russia… It could also be China… It could also be somebody sitting on their bed who weighs 400 pounds. You don’t know who hacked into the DNC… But what did we learn from documents? We learned Bernie Sanders was taken advantage of by your people. … Whether that was Russia, China or another country… The truth is under President Obama we’ve lost control.” (Quotes from the debate). This raises red flags for me in light of the recent reports of alleged Russian cyberattacks and evidence that a Dutch-led criminal investigation into the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 found evidence that the airliner was struck by a Russian-made missile that was moved into eastern Ukraine from Russia. (see USA Today)
I also question why Mr. Trump is the only person running for President that has not released his tax returns in 40 years. Even Trump’s running mate has released his. What is he hiding? According to the leaked 1995 tax papers, he’s hiding the fact that he likely doesn’t pay any income taxes.
Hillary Clinton has called Donald Trump a “loose cannon.” This is an unpredictable or uncontrolled person who is likely to cause unintentional damage. Politico Magazine has an article, Clinton explains ‘loose cannon’ attack on Trump, where she provides her reasons. I think she makes a good case. In March, during a town hall with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, the following was said.
MATTHEWS: OK. The trouble is, when you said that, the whole world heard it. David Cameron in Britain heard it. The Japanese, where we bombed them in 45, heard it. They`re hearing a guy running for president of the United States talking of maybe using nuclear weapons. Nobody wants to hear that about an American president.
TRUMP: Then why are we making them? Why do we make them?
I don’t know about you, but that scares the hell out of me. Do Americans really want someone like this to have control of nuclear weapons?
Now I could go on and on. The media report that Trump and Clinton are in a virtual dead heat. Now I know Hillary Clinton has her baggage. I get that. I also understand the desire for change. That was evident in our country during the 2015 election, but it seems when Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton are the likely choices for president, there is only one choice. Furthermore, there must be a reason why none of the big name Republicans (see the List), such as both former President Bushes, have not endorsed this man.
So I repeat, I just cannot understand why Donald Trump has so much support. So in all seriousness, if you can “shed some light” on this, please do. Please enlighten me!
it and asked for the ban. Must be tough. In other words, his view is to ban all Muslims from entering the USA, a position he put forth during the primaries.
presidential candidate. “Look at that face. Would anybody vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president? ! I mean, she’s a woman, and I’m not s’posedta say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious? ” Now Dictionary.com defines sexism as, The belief that one gender is superior to the other, especially that men are superior to women. Trump’s words, “she’a a woman” sounds to me that he thinks women are lesser than men. That sounds like sexism to me. In fact, the Telegraph has a 
On a CNN program, speaking with Jake Tapper, Mr. Trump specifically attacked the “Mexican heritage” of the judge. Mr. Curiel is a man who was born in Indiana, who battled Mexican drug cartels as a federal prosecutor and was appointed to the bench by a Republican. “This judge is of Mexican heritage,” Trump said in the interview. He went on to say, “I’m building a wall, OK? I’m building a wall. … He’s a member of a society where, you know, very pro-Mexico. And that’s fine. But I think he should recuse himself.” When asked on CBS’ “Face the Nation” if a Muslim judge would treat him unfairly because he has vowed to ban Muslims from entering America, the potential president said: “It’s possible, yes. That would be possible, absolutely.” (see 
attention. In October Hurricane Patricia, the most intense hurricane ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere, had winds up to 322 kilometres per hour (200 mph). November saw multiple attacks by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the best known was the attack in Paris, France, resulting in 130 fatalities. Also in November of this year Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet which is the first case of a NATO member destroying a Russian aircraft since the 1950s. In June of 2015, ISIL claimed responsibility for three attacks around the world during Ramadan such as the one in Kuwait City where a suicide bomber attacked a Mosque killing 27 people and injuring 227 others. Then there was the Greek government debt crisis in July when Greece became the first developed economy to miss a payment to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the 70-year history of the IMF.
hostility between the nations. In December, a global climate change pact was agreed upon at the COP 21 summit, where 195 countries adopted the first-ever universal, legally binding global climate deal. This is great news for the planet. Also in December of this year SpaceX, a company that hopes to revolutionize space technology, lands a Falcon 9 rocket. This is the first reusable rocket to successfully enter the Earth’s orbit and return. This brings hope for space travel as it makes it cheaper. December also saw Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi make a surprise visit to Pakistan to meet his counterpart, Nawaz Sharif. This is the first time an Indian leader has visited Pakistan in over a decade. Relations between these two countries have been bitter ever since the violent division of British India in 1947, and the two nations have a history of numerous military conflicts. This shows that good relations are possible between rivals. That gives hope that peace is achievable. Also in December the members of the Scottish Parliament voted unanimously in favour of a law to ban smoking in cars that are carrying children. That’s great news for kids. There are certainly more positive events of 2015 I could report, but you get the idea.
So what will 2016 bring? The pessimists will likely envision , more ISIL terrorist attacks, more anger from Mother Nature in the form of violent storms, more conflicts between nations, more economic problems, and on and on. Optimists will focus on the positives like improved political relations, the international community working together to slow climate change, improvements in human rights, improvements in health, and so on. I choose to be in the optimist camp. I choose to believe that 2016 will bring many good things. Really, the only thing we can control is the choices we make. To quote Brad Paisley, “Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365 [366 for 2016] page book. Write a good one.” I’m choosing to make it a good one. I’m choosing to make 2016 a great year!
Sommer Season all year 