Major voices in the national media have begun to call on Republicans to block GOP front-runner Donald Trump at whatever cost, and say Republican leaders need to take steps to make sure Trump is not the nominee.
The Washington Post editorial board argued Wednesday evening that Republican leaders “must do everything in your power to stop Trump.”
“[H]istory will not look kindly on GOP leaders who fail to do everything in their power to prevent a bullying demagogue from becoming their standard-bearer,” the Post said. “If Mr. Trump is to be stopped, now is the time for leaders of conscience to say they will not and cannot support him and to do what they can to stop him. … Is the Republican Party truly not going to resist its own debasement?”
On the same day, conservative writer for the National Review Charles Cooke wrote that it’s “time to throw everything at Trump, and to stop this disaster in its tracks.” He called on Trump’s rivals, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, to “find their resolve and all-but-machine-gun the man to the floor” at the next GOP debate, which takes place Thursday.
Noah Rothman at the conservative Commentary wrote Tuesday, “It is time to run the campaign that Democrats would surely mobilize against the boorish lout (Trump) who has ruined the vulnerable, flouted decency, disgraced American tradition, and has no abiding respect for the Constitution he would be tasked with upholding.”
Of the four GOP primary contests that have so far taken place, Trump has handily won three. Only Cruz has defeated Trump in one of them, the Iowa caucuses, but by a slim margin. Rubio has not won any and his campaign has been unable to identify any states that it’s on firm footing to take.
Both Cruz and Rubio have said publicly that if they were respectively the last man standing against Trump, GOP voters would consolidate behind them and they could defeat the billionaire businessman. Neither candidate, however, has said he is willing to remove himself from the race for the goal of taking down Trump.
Several states, including Massachusetts, will hold primaries next week, and the Boston Globe, which has endorsed John Kasich, urged its Republican readers this week to use the primary as a chance to deliver a blow to Trump.
“Trump’s campaign has revived some of the ugliest traditions in American politics, including the scapegoating of religious minorities and immigrants,” the Globe said. “He has yet to put forth a serious platform of ideas about how he would govern or what a Trump administration would seek to accomplish. Just his nomination by one of the nation’s major parties would be an international embarrassment. … The best way to stop Trump is to stop Trump now.”
After Trump’s decisive win South Carolina last week, the New York Daily News tabloid editorialized that Trump “must be stopped” by his rivals, though one of which, Jeb Bush, dropped out after that contest.
“Trump has successfully exploited a dark vision of America; spouted insults, vulgarities and falsehoods; proposed plans that are impossible, inane or both, and dominated both the debate and his rivals,” the Daily News said. “The sane Republicans running have little time to spare in stopping Donald Trump from becoming the standard-bearer of the party of Abraham Lincoln.”
After that contest, Jeb Bush, once the front-runner for the party’s nomination, dropped out with 6 percent support nationally. Trump had 33 percent.
