ON TARGET COMMENTARY

They’ve Created a Monster

 3/2/16                                                                                                                                                                                                                  by Dave Gunn

     Super Tuesday is now history, and Donald Trump is continuing to steamroll his way to the Republican presidential nomination.  Trump won Georgia, Arkansas, Vermont, Massachusetts, Alabama, Virginia, and Tennessee.  Trump has now amassed 319 delegates, one-quarter of those needed to win the nomination.

     Running a distant second was Ted Cruz, who managed to win his home state of Texas, along with Oklahoma and Alaska.  The silver lining to Cruz’s dark clouds was the proportional awarding of delegates, which kept him closer to Trump in delegates than in states.  Cruz now has 226 delegates.

     Marco Rubio finally won a state caucus in Minnesota, where Republicans are as scarce as hen’s teeth.  If polling data holds up, Rubio will lose his home state’s primary to Trump by double digits.  With almost half of the convention delegates chosen, Rubio has a paltry 8-percent.

     All this has the Republican Party establishment in full-blown panic mode.  Nothing they have done has worked to stop Trump.  They bankrolled Jeb Bush and gave him impressive endorsements.  Trump promptly destroyed Bush.  They warned that Trump could not beat Hilary or Bernie, but Trumps followers did not listen.  They are even talking of not supporting Trump if he does win the nomination.  But again, neither Trump nor his people are paying any attention to the establishment.  They pointed out that Trump would remain neutral in the matter of Israel and the Palestinians, and that he was in favor of supporting Planned Parenthood, but even voters who identified as evangelicals did not seem to care.

     The Republican establishment also counted on Trump to ruin his own candidacy with his rash remarks and crude ways.  But no matter what stupid thing Trump said or did – and he has done and said some really stupid things – he has gotten a pass from the voters.

      Who is to blame?  For that, the establishment Republicans only need look in the mirror.  They have promised much, and delivered next to nothing.  They have allowed Barack Obama to run roughshod over the people and have done nothing to stop his excesses in doubling the national debt, regulating whole companies out of business, and ruling by executive order like a banana-republic El-Jefe.  Now the Republican grassroots have had enough, and they will vote for Donald Trump, if for no other reason, to payback the Republican establishment for ignoring them in between elections, promising them what they never intended to do, and being just as imperial as the Democrat establishment.

     And Trump has them where he wants them.  They cannot stop him with another establishment candidate.  The people won’t have it.  Nor can they sabotage Trump with their cheating machinations.  If they do, he will go independent and siphon off enough Republican votes to give the election to Hilary Clinton.

     The only way to stop Trump is with someone who the establishment hates as much as they do the Donald, mainly because they cannot control him either.  If Marco Rubio will do the smart thing he will drop out of the race and endorseTed Cruz, who, with Rubio’s support, might be able to overtake Trump and beat him honestly for the nomination.  So far, Rubio is not listening.  Perhaps, after he loses his state of Florida to Trump, he will be more reasonable.

[Dave Gunn is the nom do plume of Dr. David E. Gonnella, Pastor of the Magnolia Springs Baptist Church in Theodore, Alabama.  The opinions expressed are his own, and do not necessarily reflect those of the church or its membership]