Earlier today, Senator Lindsey Grahamnesty (R-SC) confirmed that he's going #NeverTrump. Here was his statement:
“It’s hard to believe that in a nation of more than three hundred million Americans Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will be our choices for president," Graham said in a statement released by his Senate office.
Graham said he'd "absolutely" not support [Mrs.] Clinton, the overwhelming favorite for the Democrat nomination, saying she'd represent Barack Obama's "third term."
“I also cannot in good conscience support Donald Trump because I do not believe he is a reliable Republican conservative nor has he displayed the judgment and temperament to serve as commander in chief," said Graham, who ran for president against Trump during the GOP primary.
Now let me pose a question to all of you Trumplicans: Why should Donald Trump care whether or not Lindsey Graham endorses him? Isn't he just one of his primary campaign victims? A "loser"? Why doesn't and can't Trump just ignore him as the irrelevancy he ought to be?
You all know the answer to that question, even if you're too stubborn to admit it: Your nominee is a brittle, thin-skinned, emotionally unstable, puerile egomaniac who cannot bear or stand to be challenged, opposed, or criticized in the slightest degree. And Graham didn't even insult him.
Yet here was The Donald's raging, lunatic, tantrumesque response:
"I fully understand why Lindsey Graham cannot support me. If I got beaten as badly as I beat him, and all the other candidates he endorsed, I would not be able to give my support either. Every time I see Lindsey Graham spew hate during interviews I ask why the media never questions how I single-handedly destroyed his hapless run for President. As a candidate who did not receive 1% in his own State - compared to my victory at nearly 40% with many others in the race - he has zero credibility. He was a poor representative and an embarrassment to the great people of South Carolina. Judging by the incompetent way he ran his campaign, it is easy to see why his military strategies have failed so badly - we can’t even beat ISIS! [emphasis added]
"Spew hate"? I'm no Lindsey Grahamnesty fan by any means, but what is Trump talking about with this blithering? Or does he really mean to equate "spewing hate" with "I also cannot in good conscience support Donald Trump because I do not believe he is a reliable Republican conservative nor has he displayed the judgment and temperament to serve as commander in chief"? It's not like Graham called him a "brittle, thin-skinned, emotionally unstable, puerile egomaniac". And, of course, Trump spent the entire GOP primary campaign "spewing hate" at all his nomination competitors. Jeb Bush was "low-energy" and wanted to "crawl back inside his mommy's spacious womb"; Ben Carson was a "child molester"; Carly Fiorina was a "horseface"; Senator Rubio was "Little Marco the sweater"; and Ted Cruz was a "lying, philandering Dudley Doright whose father murdered JFK". Is perceived gimmick infringement why he went off on Graham like this?
Again: Donald Trump is the "Republican" presidential nominee. Lindsey Graham isn't a pimple on his desiccated ass. Yet he spent over 150 shouting words telling the world that Lindsey Graham isn't a pimple on his desiccated ass while proving that Lindsey Graham is the center of his universe. And all because Graham won't bow down to him.
Yeah, THAT's a "presidential" mien.
And then he finished with this:
While I will unify the party, Lindsey Graham has shown himself to be beyond rehabilitation. And like the voters who rejected him, so will I! [emphasis added]
He's going to "unify the party" by telling the three-fifths of it that don't support him to go fuck themselves? Or is the idea to forcibly shrink the party down until the only ones left in it are his bootlicking sycophants and mind-controlled zombies? That's certainly the impression I got from the Huckabee performance. Doesn't seem like a good way to fortify his base for the general campaign, though. Doesn't he want to win in November?
But the Graham attack was just the warmup act. The main event came at a rally in Nebraska today:
After some perfunctory remarks demagoguing [Red] China, Trump immediately lit into an uninterrupted tirade against his "fellow" Republicans who are not supporting him for president, trashing them in the most thorough way.
At no point in the twenty-plus minutes of this speech that I watched did he ever even mention Hillary Clinton.
For a guy who has proclaimed “we’re gonna have unity,” Trump has zero interest in doing anything to actually create unity at all in the party. Tearing down Republicans seems to be more or less the only thing he even knows how to do. It’s definitely the only thing he shows an interest in doing. [emphases added]
Sounds like a Democrat to me.
Trump has had the nomination in his stubby-fingered hands for three days and he's already melting down from the less than total subservient obsequiousness of a handful of Republicans who manned (and womaned) up and stood on their principles instead of bowing and curtsying to what Senator Rubio back in March accurately referred to as "a third world strongman".
Yeah, THAT's the man we want in possession of the nuclear launch codes.
Exit question from Leon Wolf: "When will Trump shut up and get behind the Republican party and actually start trying to beat Hillary? For now all he’s doing is insulting people he’s already beaten."
UPDATE: Look on the bright side, Trumpies: Your nominee just upgraded his foreign policy team with the man who a year ago forfeited the Senate's Article II, Section 2 treaty ratification power to facilitate Barack Obama's arming of the Iranian mullahgarchy with nuclear weapons.
Sounds like Trump's "art of the deal" wouldn't differ markedly from that of his would-be predecessor.
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