Kelly feud, riot comments show Trump will never be presidential

Donald Trump has had one job since March 15 (and arguably, before that): Unify the Republican Party by showing you can be calm and presidential.

He has failed — miserably — and if he gets booted at the RNC convention or is challenged by a third-party conservative, it is his own fault.

With Trump rising in the polls and racking up victories, many Republicans wanted to give him a second chance. They knew he had said some radical and offensive things, but they were willing to give him a opportunity if he could pivot and demonstrate a more levelheaded, calm approach.

Instead of taking that opportunity and unifying the Party, and maybe even the country, Trump blew it.

When he had the chance to bring people together, he couldn’t get past his short-triggered temper — calling for riots at the Republican National Convention and getting into a semi-sexist Twitter war with Fox News.

After a history of sexist comments, the last thing Trump needed to do was pick another fight with America’s most popular female cable news host: Megyn Kelly.

Not only did he criticize her show, he called her “crazy,” “sick,” and “average in so many ways.” And this, after months ago when he said she had “blood coming out of her wherever.” Here are the latest tweets:

These anti-Kelly attacks may fire up his supporters, but at this point, Trump needs to do more than that to win. These attacks completely work against his objective to unify by being presidential. Can you ever imagine a president saying these things to a female reporter? 

And then, there are the riot comments. 

Trump was asked what would happen if an open convention sided against him. He responded, “I think you’d have riots. I’m representing a tremendous many, many millions of people.”

Did Trump think a threat of riots would inspire law-and-order Republicans to back him? Whose vote did he think he would win with these comments? 

Many of the #NeverTrump conservatives have accused Trump of being like a third-world politician; these comments give credence to that criticism. When Americans think of riots, they either think of race riots or riots in third-world countries. 

The Trump campaign rallies and protests on television seem to combine both. The protestors aren’t without blame, but you simply do not see this violence at Ted Cruz or Hillary Clinton rallies. 

Riots and race protests certainly aren’t signs of Party or national unity. Trump has known that to win the Republican nomination outright, he needed to pivot to becoming presidential. However, he has shown in the last weeks that he is incapable of being presidential. When he needed to unify the most, he instead further ripped the nation apart. 

He still has a chance to pivot, but it’s probably too late.