The Washington Post is begging primary voters to reconsider their support for Republican front-runner Donald Trump, and warned this week that the businessman’s political ascendency is not unlike that of other famous dictators, including Adolf Hitler.
“[Y]ou don’t have to go back to history’s most famous example, Adolf Hitler, to understand that authoritarian rulers can achieve power through the ballot box,” the Post’s editorial board said Tuesday, explaining how it considers the casino tycoon’s bid for the White House a “threat to democracy.”
“In the world today, it has become almost commonplace for elected leaders to lock the door behind them once they achieve power. Vladimir Putin in Russia, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Yoweri Museveni in Uganda, Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey — all found ways once in power to restrict opposition, muzzle the media and erode checks and balances,” they added.
Presidential candidates from both parties are battling Tuesday in primary events in more than 10 states.
Political pundits and commentators are predicting Trump will win big in Tuesday evening’s GOP races against Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Ohio Gov. John Kasich and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson for the available 595 delegates.
Trump has already won 82 delegates, and the thought of him winning enough to clinch the GOP nomination (1,237) has the Post terrified.
“Mr. Trump gives ample reason to fear that he would not respect traditional limits on executive authority. He promotes actions that would be illegal, such as torture. He intimates that he would use government to attack those who displease him,” it wrote.
“He promises diktats — impose a tariff, build a wall — as if Congress is nothing but an inconvenience. His vow to round up and deport 11 million undocumented immigrants, while perhaps not requiring congressional action, would necessitate a kind of intrusive police power this country has never seen,” they added.
Though the Post holds out hope that Trump will fail either in the GOP primary or the general election, they warn that his campaign itself marks a dangerous turn in American politics.
“Politics is never free of rough-and-tumble accusations, wild exaggerations and unrealistic promises. But when Mr. Trump cheers the assault on one protester at his rally and says of another, ‘I’d like to punch him in the face,’ that is something new and different,” it wrote.
“It is out of the ordinary when a candidate recycles demonstrably false Internet rumors … and stands by them even when they are disproved,” the paper added. “That he has difficulty repudiating the most odious white terrorist group in U.S. history; that he feels no need to explain, debate or defend his pie-in-the-sky proposals; that he degrades and disparages women, Mexicans, Jews, Muslims, people with disabilities — these are challenges to the core functioning of any democracy.”
There’s nothing wrong with worrying about border security, they added, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with worrying about national security and terrorism.
“But Mr. Trump is pandering to those fears, not offering solutions. In so doing, he is insulting voters with genuine concerns. We continue to believe that Americans deserve better than that — and are better than that,” it added.
