Barack Obama is legendary for his inability to deal with political and ideological opposition. With him, there's no such thing as others being entitled to their own opinions; no, everybody is only entitled to Obama's opinion, because Obama's opinion is Holy Writ, no deviation from it is permitted, and anybody that does is a heretic who must be destroyed.
Donald Trump is even worse.
Put yourself in his position, ladies and gentlemen. You're an "outsider" (you're really a Democrat trojan horse saboteur, but work with me here) in the GOP presidential race. You are who you are - a flamboyant, loud-mouthed jerk. Now ask yourself a very basic, pertinent question: would you consider it at all likely that an "establishment" conservative pundit the caliber and demeanor of George Will would endorse you as opposed to a more conventional candidate in the Republican field? I certainly wouldn't. I would expect the Bowtied One to go with a Bush or a Kasich or a Christie. And when Will announced that on the televised or cable airwaves, I wouldn't think twice about it, because it would be entirely expected.
But Donald Trump doesn't live and let live. He can't. He's congenitally incapable of doing so. So any conservative pundit that doesn't line up behind him (Ann Coulter comes gratingly to mind) has to be destroyed.
Thus, we have this story:
Donald Trump Thursday attacked political pundit George Will on Twitter and demanded that he be thrown off Fox News for being "boring and totally biased" after the nationally syndicated columnist published an opinion piece supporting New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in the GOP primary.
Trump's initial tweet was posted and shortly deleted at around 9:25 a.m., and then was sent out again at 10:37 a.m., reports the Hill.
Broken down political pundit @GeorgeWill, who is wrong almost all of the time, should be thrown off @FoxNews. Boring and totally biased!
First of all, nobody has ever said that George Will is "exciting," most particularly George Will - he wears a frickin' bowtie, for heaven's sake. In essence, Trump is blasting Will for not being Trump, which is like slamming Miley Cyrus for being a lousy nun. If Trump is going to blast others for not being just like him, he's going to be doing nothing else for the rest of his life. And since he's pretty much been doing that for his entire life up until now, I'd say that baseline has been well established. And it is not one that is remotely presidential. Which is pretty much Mr. Will's point.
Second, of course George Will is "totally biased" - he's a pundit and commentator. "Bias" is the core of the job description. An "unbiased commentator" is like "jumbo shrimp"; a nullity, a dunsel. Another synonym would be "unemployed," because he'd not only have nothing interesting to say, he'd have nothing to say at all. And, of course, what Trump means by "totally biased" is "totally biased against Trump". Which will not be tolerated in a Trump presidency, apparently.
Thirdly, George Will is a conservative commentator. Now heaven knows we Republicans and even we conservatives don't always see eye to eye on every issue, but we do on most things, or ought to, one would logically think. So, apart from his usual penchant for bombastic exaggeration, how can Trump say that Will is almost always wrong if Trump is really a conservative?
Lastly, and most to the point, have we not had enough of a president so intolerant and thin-skinned that he has bitterly divided the country, perhaps irreparably? Can we afford, even survive, perpetuating that sort of destructive temperment in the White House? After seeing the damage that having a jerk as POTUS has done to the country and the world the past seven years, can we really afford to elect another one? Especially one that is every bit as big a leftist and liar as the one he'd be replacing, only this time with an "R" after his name?
A lot of GOP voters have a "What the hell?/What have we got to lose?" attitude about the 2016 race. But we do, in fact, have a great deal to lose, even if the country was lost three years ago, as I have never ceased to believe: The Final Collapse can be hastened dramatically and catastrophically, with no possibility of even a semi-soft landing.
And by nominating and electing Donald Trump, Republicans would have delivered the final, fatal blow themselves.
If we're going to go down regardless, can't we at least let the Left inflict the killing blow? At least that way, George Will won't be on the tube saying, "I told you so," with me serving as his caddy.
UPDATE: First criticism of Trump by...Ted Cruz:
Texas Senator Ted Cruz made a notable break with Donald Trump Friday when he denounced Trump’s comments that he would make Muslims in America register in a database.
Cruz has been careful not to attack Trump on the trail, likely because he hopes to scoop up Trump supports if the business mogul drops out of the race. So he was careful to couch his statement by beginning, “I’m a big fan of Donald Trump’s,” Politico reports.
“But I’m not a fan of government registries of American citizens,” Cruz continued. “The First Amendment protects religious liberty, I’ve spent the past several decades defending religious liberty.”
Trump was being Trump, saying outrageous things to make the GOP look bad. With the Muslim registry gambit, he may have given Cruz the opening the latter has been waiting for to raid his core support. Something Trump belatedly must have realized, judging from this Tweet:
I didn't suggest a database-a reporter did. We must defeat Islamic terrorism & have surveillance, including a watch list, to protect America
It doesn't really matter who suggested it; the reporter threw the idea out there, and Trump enthusiastically endorsed it. Nobody made him do that; he did it all on his own. It's exactly the kind of rookie mistake a "non-politician" makes, compounded by the fact that he's now cutting against his own "No retreat! No surrender! Take no prisoners!" image by walking it back in precisely the mealy-mouthed fashion of the "professional politicians" he's endlessly disparaging. It's really no different substantively from when Jeb Bush endorsed unrestricted "Syrian refugee" immigration and then quickly walked that gaffe back the same day, saying something stupid that alienates both sides of an issue.
Or at least, it ought to alienate Trumplicans. Unless that mindless cult of personality is as egregious as it has always appeared.
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