Cleveland
Yes, Donald Trump is crazy. And, yes, the Republican party owns his insanity.
Fewer than twelve hours after Republicans rallied in support of his nomination for the presidency, Trump once again implied that Rafael Cruz, Ted Cruz’s father, was involved in the JFK assassination. At a press availability during an event to thank campaign volunteers Friday morning, Trump revived suggestions that the elder Cruz was an associate of Lee Harvey Oswald, Kennedy’s assassin, and that they two were together months before the assassination.
“I don’t know his father. I met him once. I think he’s a lovely guy. I think he’s a lovely guy. All I did was point out the fact that on the cover of the National Enquirer there was a picture of him and crazy Lee Harvey Oswald having breakfast. Now, Ted never denied that it was his father. Instead, he said Donald Trump—I had nothing to do with it. This was a magazine that, frankly, in many respects should be very respected.”
He continued: “Did anybody ever deny that it was the father? They’re not saying: ‘Oh, that wasn’t really my father.’ It was a little hard to do. It looked like him.”
Trump believes it is a picture of Cruz and Oswald. “I know nothing about his father. I know nothing about Lee Harvey Oswald. But there was a picture, on the front page of the National Enquirer, which does have credibility—and they’re not going to do pictures like that because they get sued for a lot of money if things are wrong, okay?”
Both Cruz and his father have vehemently—and repeatedly—denied any suggestion that the man in the photograph is the elder Cruz or that he was an associate of Oswald, contrary to Trump’s claim. That hasn’t stopped Trump’s innuendo. In May, when he first raised questions about the elder Cruz, Trump said: “What was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the shooting?”
The Kennedy assassination is one of the most heavily investigated events in the past century. Cruz’s father was not implicated. There is no evidence to support claims that he was ever in the presence of Lee Harvey Oswald or had a role in the Kennedy assassination. And scholars who have studied those events have said without qualification that Cruz wasn’t involved. But Trump peddles his nonsense anyway.
There are two explanations. Either Trump believes Rafael Cruz was involved or he’s making the implied accusation in a continued attempt to discredit Cruz’s son. In either case, this isn’t the behavior of a rational, stable individual. It should embarrass those who have endorsed him and disgrace those who have attempted to normalize him.
The degree of this normalization is stunning. The Republican nominee for president made comments Friday that one might expect from a patient in a mental institution, the kind of stuff you might read on blog with really small print and pictures of UFOs. And yet his remarks barely register as news. There are no condemnations from fellow Republicans. His supporters shrug them off as Trump being Trump.
To the extent Trump’s latest outburst has generated any attention, it’s been a discussion of the tactical mistake he’s made. There’s been head-shaking that he’s gone “off-message,” expressions of wonder at his lack of discipline, speculation about the electoral impact of his latest comments, disbelief about the timing of his comments and bewilderment at their target.
All of this misses the point. It’s not about tactics or messaging. It’s about something simpler and something much more important: Donald Trump is not of sound mind.
His amplification of the Cruz-Oswald conspiracies is part of a long pattern of embracing crazy. He hinted that Antonin Scalia was murdered. He’s suggested autism is linked to vaccinations. He claimed “thousands” of Muslims celebrated in the streets of New Jersey after 9/11. He said many people consider Vince Foster’s death a “murder” and called it “very fishy.” And before he ran for president, his deepest foray into politics was a campaign to prove that Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States. (It failed.)
Trump has praised Alex Jones, whose radio program is to conspiracy theories what ESPN is to sports. Jones, a prominent 9/11 truther, claimed there was a “98 percent chance” that the 9/11 attacks were controlled bombings perpetrated by the U.S. government. In an appearance on Jones’s radio show last year, Trump offered the host deferential praise. “Your reputation is amazing,” Trump said. “I will not let you down.”
The implications of Trump’s irrationality are troubling. Would a President Trump believe—and potentially act on—conspiracy theories presented to him in a bilateral meeting with Vladimir Putin? Trump has expressed admiration for Putin, just as he’s praised the National Enquirer. In his comments Friday, Trump called the National Enquirer “respected” and wondered aloud why such a credible publication hasn’t won the Pulitzer Prize. If he accepts as fact the reports in a publication like the Enquirer, why wouldn’t he believe someone like Putin? The possibilities for manipulating the leader of the free world are endless and terrifying.
So, what should Republican leaders do? Trump is, after all, their nominee for president and the leader of their party. Isn’t it better to simply make the best of a bad situation?
I suppose that’s one possibility and I’d assume it’s what virtually all Republicans will do. There’s little doubt that this bit of Trumpian insanity will fade away like the ones that came before. So this party of followers, nearly all of them, will keep their heads down and wait for this latest incident to be eclipsed by other news—the Munich attacks, Hillary Clinton’s running mate, the Democratic National Convention.
The better course would be to speak out against Trump, to say in public what some of you said when you initially opposed his candidacy, to say what many of you have said to me privately: Donald Trump isn’t fit to serve as president, and electing him president would be dangerous. That might mean saying that you’re unwilling to support the nominee of your party. It might mean retracting an endorsement.
Trump supporters would pretend that your refusal to support Trump means you’re backing Hillary Clinton. It’s an absurd argument, of course. There are other options. This election is not a “binary choice” as Trump backers claim. If the top candidates are, on the one hand, a congenital liar who jeopardized national security in service of her own ambition, and on the other, an unstable conspiracy theorist, the best choice is none of the above—a non-endorsement, a third party candidate, a write-in.
Doing this would be risky and perhaps costly. It’d also be right.
