AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY
By David Remnick , NOVEMBER 9, 2016

But despair is no answer.

To combat authoritarianism, to call out lies, to struggle honorably and fiercely in the name of American ideals—that is what is left to do.

That is all there is to do.

The election of Donald Trump to the Presidency is nothing less than a tragedy for the American republic, a tragedy for the Constitution, and a triumph for the forces, at home and abroad, of nativism, authoritarianism, misogyny, and racism. Trump’s shocking victory, his ascension to the Presidency, is a sickening event in the history of the United States and liberal democracy. On January 20, 2017, we will bid farewell to the first African-American President—a man of integrity, dignity, and generous spirit—and witness the inauguration of a con who did little to spurn endorsement by forces of xenophobia and white supremacy. It is impossible to react to this moment with anything less than revulsion and profound anxiety.

There are, inevitably, miseries to come: an increasingly reactionary Supreme Court; an emboldened right-wing Congress; a President whose disdain for women and minorities, civil liberties and scientific fact, to say nothing of simple decency, has been repeatedly demonstrated. Trump is vulgarity unbounded, a knowledge-free national leader who will not only set markets tumbling but will strike fear into the hearts of the vulnerable, the weak, and, above all, the many varieties of Other whom he has so deeply insulted. The African-American Other. The Hispanic Other. The female Other. The Jewish and Muslim Other. The most hopeful way to look at this grievous event—and it’s a stretch—is that this election and the years to follow will be a test of the strength, or the fragility, of American institutions. It will be a test of our seriousness and resolve.

Early on Election Day, the polls held out cause for concern, but they provided sufficiently promising news for Democrats in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, and even Florida that there was every reason to think about celebrating the fulfillment of Seneca Falls, the election of the first woman to the White House. Potential victories in states like Georgia disappeared, little more than a week ago, with the F.B.I. director’s heedless and damaging letter to Congress about reopening his investigation and the reappearance of damaging buzzwords like “e-mails,” “Anthony Weiner,” and “fifteen-year-old girl.” But the odds were still with Hillary Clinton.

All along, Trump seemed like a twisted caricature of every rotten reflex of the radical right. That he has prevailed, that he has won this election, is a crushing blow to the spirit; it is an event that will likely cast the country into a period of economic, political, and social uncertainty that we cannot yet imagine. That the electorate has, in its plurality, decided to live in Trump’s world of vanity, hate, arrogance, untruth, and recklessness, his disdain for democratic norms, is a fact that will lead, inevitably, to all manner of national decline and suffering.

In the coming days, commentators will attempt to normalize this event. They will try to soothe their readers and viewers with thoughts about the “innate wisdom” and “essential decency” of the American people. They will downplay the virulence of the nationalism displayed, the cruel decision to elevate a man who rides in a gold-plated airliner but who has staked his claim with the populist rhetoric of blood and soil. George Orwell, the most fearless of commentators, was right to point out that public opinion is no more innately wise than humans are innately kind. People can behave foolishly, recklessly, self-destructively in the aggregate just as they can individually. Sometimes all they require is a leader of cunning, a demagogue who reads the waves of resentment and rides them to a popular victory. “The point is that the relative freedom which we enjoy depends of public opinion,” Orwell wrote in his essay “Freedom of the Park.” “The law is no protection. Governments make laws, but whether they are carried out, and how the police behave, depends on the general temper in the country. If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them.”

Trump ran his campaign sensing the feeling of dispossession and anxiety among millions of voters—white voters, in the main. And many of those voters—not all, but many—followed Trump because they saw that this slick performer, once a relative cipher when it came to politics, a marginal self-promoting buffoon in the jokescape of eighties and nineties New York, was more than willing to assume their resentments, their fury, their sense of a new world that conspired against their interests. That he was a billionaire of low repute did not dissuade them any more than pro-Brexit voters in Britain were dissuaded by the cynicism of Boris Johnson and so many others. The Democratic electorate might have taken comfort in the fact that the nation had recovered substantially, if unevenly, from the Great Recession in many ways—unemployment is down to 4.9 per cent—but it led them, it led us, to grossly underestimate reality. The Democratic electorate also believed that, with the election of an African-American President and the rise of marriage equality and other such markers, the culture wars were coming to a close. Trump began his campaign declaring Mexican immigrants to be “rapists”; he closed it with an anti-Semitic ad evoking “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”; his own behavior made a mockery of the dignity of women and women’s bodies. And, when criticized for any of it, he batted it all away as “political correctness.” Surely such a cruel and retrograde figure could succeed among some voters, but how could he win? Surely, Breitbart News, a site of vile conspiracies, could not become for millions a source of news and mainstream opinion. And yet Trump, who may have set out on his campaign merely as a branding exercise, sooner or later recognized that he could embody and manipulate these dark forces. The fact that “traditional” Republicans, from George H. W. Bush to Mitt Romney, announced their distaste for Trump only seemed to deepen his emotional support.

The commentators, in their attempt to normalize this tragedy, will also find ways to discount the bumbling and destructive behavior of the F.B.I., the malign interference of Russian intelligence, the free pass—the hours of uninterrupted, unmediated coverage of his rallies—provided to Trump by cable television, particularly in the early months of his campaign. We will be asked to count on the stability of American institutions, the tendency of even the most radical politicians to rein themselves in when admitted to office. Liberals will be admonished as smug, disconnected from suffering, as if so many Democratic voters were unacquainted with poverty, struggle, and misfortune. There is no reason to believe this palaver. There is no reason to believe that Trump and his band of associates—Chris Christie, Rudolph Giuliani, Mike Pence, and, yes, Paul Ryan—are in any mood to govern as Republicans within the traditional boundaries of decency. Trump was not elected on a platform of decency, fairness, moderation, compromise, and the rule of law; he was elected, in the main, on a platform of resentment. Fascism is not our future—it cannot be; we cannot allow it to be so—but this is surely the way fascism can begin.

Hillary Clinton was a flawed candidate but a resilient, intelligent, and competent leader, who never overcame her image among millions of voters as untrustworthy and entitled. Some of this was the result of her ingrown instinct for suspicion, developed over the years after one bogus “scandal” after another. And yet, somehow, no matter how long and committed her earnest public service, she was less trusted than Trump, a flim-flam man who cheated his customers, investors, and contractors; a hollow man whose countless statements and behavior reflect a human being of dismal qualities—greedy, mendacious, and bigoted. His level of egotism is rarely exhibited outside of a clinical environment.

For eight years, the country has lived with Barack Obama as its President. Too often, we tried to diminish the racism and resentment that bubbled under the cyber-surface. But the information loop had been shattered. On Facebook, articles in the traditional, fact-based press look the same as articles from the conspiratorial alt-right media. Spokesmen for the unspeakable now have access to huge audiences. This was the cauldron, with so much misogynistic language, that helped to demean and destroy Clinton. The alt-right press was the purveyor of constant lies, propaganda, and conspiracy theories that Trump used as the oxygen of his campaign. Steve Bannon, a pivotal figure at Breitbart, was his propagandist and campaign manager.

It is all a dismal picture. Late last night, as the results were coming in from the last states, a friend called me full of sadness, full of anxiety about conflict, about war. Why not leave the country? But despair is no answer. To combat authoritarianism, to call out lies, to struggle honorably and fiercely in the name of American ideals—that is what is left to do. That is all there is to do.

AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY
By David Remnick , NOVEMBER 9, 2016
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/an-american-tragedy-2

‘Normalizing’ Trump

Despite all evidence to the contrary, the media insistently portray Trump as a normal candidate.

Harry Enten of Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight.com titled a recent post “The More ‘Normal’ Trump Can Make This Race, the Better His Chances.” This is obviously true, and hence every effort by the media to treat Donald Trump as a “normal” presidential candidate brings us closer to the potential destruction of our democracy. And yet we can see it taking place at virtually every level of our media.

Silver recently estimated Trump’s chances of victory at about one in three. Remember, we are talking about a psychopathic narcissist whose alt-right agenda offers so many threats to the well-being of our country and the world, they defy simple enumeration or categorization. Even Republican political professionals are amazed. Scott Reed, chief strategist for the US Chamber of Commerce — who also managed Bob Dole’s 1996 presidential campaign, among others — finds it “really quite amazing that after the Trump adventure this is still a competitive race.”

The media deserve a good deal of blame here, not only because of the billions of dollars’ worth of free airtime television networks have given to Trump but also because of their insistence — against all evidence — that he is someone other than the person he clearly presents himself to be.

On Sept. 7, NBC perfectly demonstrated how entrenched the forced normalization of Trump has become. Matt Lauer’s disgraceful performance during the “Commander-in-Chief Forum,” held aboard the battleship Intrepid, proved so egregious that it may have shamed others into taking the Trump threat more seriously. Given a chance to sound presidential and equal in stature to the former secretary of state, Trump made one offensive, idiotic and demonstrably false assertion after another. Lauer challenged none of them. At the same time, he treated Hillary Clinton’s e-mail choices in office as the most significant national-security issue of the campaign, devoting a third of his questions to her to the topic. (Had the forum taken place four days later, the global threat would have been pneumonia.) Not only were the veterans in attendance reduced to pointless props; so, too, were the issues themselves, since Lauer apparently did not know (or care) enough about them to ask a single intelligent, informed question of either candidate.

It should surprise no one that Lauer’s performance was defended on Fox News by media darling Megyn Kelly and the once-respected media critic (now right-wing shill) Howard Kurtz. Although both Kelly and Kurtz are dishonest, neither is stupid. And so instead of seeking to defend Lauer’s performance on its merits (or lack thereof), they adopted Roger Ailes’s tried-and-true method of changing the subject to attack the so-called liberal media. “You can’t win” with the “left-wing press,” which insists on “kill[ing] Trump,” Kelly insisted. Kurtz also demonstrated how powerfully he has internalized Ailes’s modus operandi, praising Lauer’s “solid job” and adding that the allegedly liberal media believed the host “should have smashed [Trump] to smithereens.”

Fox has strong reasons to pull for Trump beyond merely ideology and access. By hiring two members of the lunatic white-nationalist fringe to run his campaign — Steve Bannon of Breitbart News and David Bossie of Citizens United and other infamies — Trump may be laying the foundation of a media empire that could challenge Rupert Murdoch from the right, and thereby cost Fox much of its audience. The post-Ailes takeover of Fox by Murdoch’s sons James and Lachlan could make the opportunity irresistible — to say nothing of Ailes’s apparent role as a close Trump adviser. The net result, though far less worrisome than a Trump presidency, would be the further normalization of the hateful nonsense spouted on Fox and by the Trump campaign in the postelection media landscape.

“Every day that goes by, this just becomes more and more of a reality-television show,” Hillary Clinton has observed. “It’s not a serious presidential campaign.” Indeed, not even the reported non-disparagement, non-disclosure agreement between Trump and his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski (nowhere denied though also not proven), nor Lewandowski’s violent manhandling of female reporters on camera, prevented CNN from offering him a lucrative contract as a “political commentator.” Has there ever been a more insulting hire to a group of journalists than this man? Has there ever been a more obvious abdication of the profession’s responsibility to provide audiences with the truth, regardless of whose interests it might serve or injure?

The high-brow Atlantic magazine has also proven itself particularly susceptible to the disease of Trump normalization. Most recently, in a Sept. 2 piece on Trump’s exploitation of voters’ fear, Molly Ball insisted that “critics who accuse Trump of cheap fear-mongering may be failing to recognize that the fear percolating in society is real, and somewhat justified.” Note the use of the weasel-word “somewhat” in that sentence. “Trump paints a fearful picture, and events validate his vision,” she continued — though just what form of “validation” Ball has in mind is not entirely clear. Immigration from Mexico has actually declined in recent years. (India and China each send more immigrants to the United States than Mexico does.) Violent crime rates are flat or falling in almost all major cities. As a nation, we are experiencing, on average, 8,000 fewer murders annually than we did 20 years ago. And do recent terrorist attacks in Paris and California, both of which Ball cites as “validation,” somehow justify Trump’s claim that “Obama was the founder of ISIS”?

Finally, in one of the silliest examples of false equivalence I’ve seen during the entire campaign, Ball equates Trump’s dangerous nonsense with Clinton’s accurate evocation of the potential dangers of a Trump presidency. Clinton, Ball writes, “is now campaigning on a fear-based appeal of her own — the fear of Trump.” Apparently, the only thing we have to fear from a Trump presidency is fear itself.

This post originally appeared at The Nation.

BY ERIC ALTERMAN | SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

Eric Alterman is CUNY distinguished professor of English and journalism at Brooklyn College, media columnist for The Nation, a senior fellow of the Center for American Progress and the author of nine books, including When Presidents Lie: A History of Official Deception and Its Consequences (2004), Kabuki Democracy: The System vs. Barack Obama (2011) and Inequality and One City: Bill de Blasio and the New York Experiment, Year One (2015). Follow him on Twitter: @Eric_Alterman.

I debate because I’m not interested in preaching to a choir. I’m expressing my opinion and I don’t need to hide or defend myself. I’m participating in a conversation that needs to take place and I will continue to do so.

You know me klove_924_143. I tried to restrain myself but I escaped. There are Apples and Oranges. We’re Apples (Family) who support different Oranges (Politics). That doesn’t take away that if we were closer we would sit across the table for Thanksgiving and Noche Buena and enjoy it like we have done since we were kids.

The general consensus of the United States, including Trump voters is that
Donald Trump is the most dangerous, unqualified, unprepared, corrupt, uncouth candidate in American history. Outside the United States this opinion only strengthens.

The case against Donald Trump

For the third time since The Atlantic’s founding, the editors endorse a candidate for president. The case for Hillary Clinton.

In October of 1860, James Russell Lowell, the founding editor of The Atlantic, warned in these pages about the perishability of the great American democratic experiment if citizens (at the time, white, male citizens) were to cease taking seriously their franchise:

In a society like ours, where every man may transmute his private thought into history and destiny by dropping it into the ballot-box, a peculiar responsibility rests upon the individual … For, though during its term of office the government be practically as independent of the popular will as that of Russia, yet every fourth year the people are called upon to pronounce upon the conduct of their affairs. Theoretically, at least, to give democracy any standing-ground for an argument with despotism or oligarchy, a majority of the men composing it should be statesmen and thinkers.

One of the animating causes of this magazine at its founding, in 1857, was the abolition of slavery, and Lowell argued that the Republican Party, and the man who was its standard-bearer in 1860, represented the only reasonable pathway out of the existential crisis then facing the country. In his endorsement of Abraham Lincoln for president, Lowell wrote, on behalf of the magazine, “It is in a moral aversion to slavery as a great wrong that the chief strength of the Republican party lies.” He went on to declare that Abraham Lincoln “had experience enough in public affairs to make him a statesman, and not enough to make him a politician.”

Perhaps because no subsequent candidate for the presidency was seen as Lincoln’s match, or perhaps because the stakes in ensuing elections were judged to be not quite so high as they were in 1860, it would be 104 years before The Atlantic would again make a presidential endorsement. In October of 1964, Edward Weeks, writing on behalf of the magazine, cited Lowell’s words before making an argument for the election of Lyndon B. Johnson. “We admire the President for the continuity with which he has maintained our foreign policy, a policy which became a worldwide responsibility at the time of the Marshall Plan,” the endorsement read. Johnson, The Atlantic believed, would bring “to the vexed problem of civil rights a power of conciliation which will prevent us from stumbling down the road taken by South Africa.”

But The Atlantic’s endorsement of Johnson was focused less on his positive attributes than on the flaws of his opponent, Barry Goldwater, the junior senator from Arizona. Of Goldwater, Weeks wrote, “His proposal to let field commanders have their choice of the smaller nuclear weapons would rupture a fundamental belief that has existed from Abraham Lincoln to today: the belief that in times of crisis the civilian authority must have control over the military.” And the magazine noted that Goldwater’s “preference to let states like Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia enforce civil rights within their own borders has attracted the allegiance of Governor George Wallace, the Ku Klux Klan, and the John Birchers.” Goldwater’s limited capacity for prudence and reasonableness was what particularly worried The Atlantic.

We think it unfortunate that Barry Goldwater takes criticism as a personal affront; we think it poisonous when his anger betrays him into denouncing what he calls the “radical” press by bracketing the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Izvestia. There speaks not the reason of the Southwest but the voice of Joseph McCarthy. We do not impugn Senator Goldwater’s honesty. We sincerely distrust his factionalism and his capacity for judgment.

Today, our position is similar to the one in which The Atlantic’s editors found themselves in 1964. We are impressed by many of the qualities of the Democratic Party’s nominee for president, even as we are exasperated by others, but we are mainly concerned with the Republican Party’s nominee, Donald J. Trump, who might be the most ostentatiously unqualified major-party candidate in the 227-year history of the American presidency.

These concerns compel us, for the third time since the magazine’s founding, to endorse a candidate for president. Hillary Rodham Clinton has more than earned, through her service to the country as first lady, as a senator from New York, and as secretary of state, the right to be taken seriously as a White House contender. She has flaws (some legitimately troubling, some exaggerated by her opponents), but she is among the most prepared candidates ever to seek the presidency. We are confident that she understands the role of the United States in the world; we have no doubt that she will apply herself assiduously to the problems confronting this country; and she has demonstrated an aptitude for analysis and hard work.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, has no record of public service and no qualifications for public office. His affect is that of an infomercial huckster; he traffics in conspiracy theories and racist invective; he is appallingly sexist; he is erratic, secretive, and xenophobic; he expresses admiration for authoritarian rulers, and evinces authoritarian tendencies himself. He is easily goaded, a poor quality for someone seeking control of America’s nuclear arsenal. He is an enemy of fact-based discourse; he is ignorant of, and indifferent to, the Constitution; he appears not to read.

 This judgment is not limited to the editors of The Atlantic. A large number—in fact, a number unparalleled since Goldwater’s 1964 campaign—of prominent policy makers and officeholders from the candidate’s own party have publicly renounced him. Trump disqualified himself from public service long before he declared his presidential candidacy. In one of the more sordid episodes in modern American politics, Trump made himself the face of the so-called birther movement, which had as its immediate goal the demonization of the country’s first African American president. Trump’s larger goal, it seemed, was to stoke fear among white Americans of dark-skinned foreigners. He succeeded wildly in this; the fear he has aroused has brought him one step away from the presidency.

Our endorsement of Clinton, and rejection of Trump, is not a blanket dismissal of the many Trump supporters who are motivated by legitimate anxieties about their future and their place in the American economy. But Trump has seized on these anxieties and inflamed and racialized them, without proposing realistic policies to address them.

In its founding statement, The Atlantic promised that it would be “the organ of no party or clique,” and our interest here is not to advance the prospects of the Democratic Party, nor to damage those of the Republican Party. If Hillary Clinton were facing Mitt Romney, or John McCain, or George W. Bush, or, for that matter, any of the leading candidates Trump vanquished in the Republican primaries, we would not have contemplated making this endorsement. We believe in American democracy, in which individuals from various parties of different ideological stripes can advance their ideas and compete for the affection of voters. But Trump is not a man of ideas. He is a demagogue, a xenophobe, a sexist, a know-nothing, and a liar. He is spectacularly unfit for office, and voters—the statesmen and thinkers of the ballot box—should act in defense of American democracy and elect his opponent. 

10 Reasons Why Donald Trump Will Be The Worst American President Ever

The U.S. presidential race, still in its earliest stages, has grabbed people’s attention due largely to the fact that Donald Trump is involved. And what initially seemed like a longshot at best has changed as public opinion polls show Donald Trump is now the Republican frontrunner to win the White House in 2016. Yet, would Donald Trump really make a good president? To date he has become the focal point of the presidential campaign by saying outrageous, inflammatory and derogatory things about women, minorities and immigrants. And while those sentiments may appeal to angry and disaffected voters, how would they translate if Donald Trump finds himself sitting in the Oval Office? American voters might want to give some serious consideration to that fact. And here are 10 reasons why Donald Trump would not only be a bad president, but likely the worst president ever.

10. Donald Trump Is Not Used to Listening to Anybody Else

There’s a saying that “a president is only as good as his advisors.” But who would, and could, advise Donald Trump? After all, this is the man whose catchphrase is “You’re fired!” Having run his own empire for nearly 40 years, Donald Trump is used to doing as he pleases and calling all the shots. He doesn’t listen to anyone—he’s certainly not listening to anyone on his campaign team who might be telling him to tone down his rhetoric. So how would he listen to an army of advisors who were trying to give him advice on domestic and foreign policy, the military and the economy? The answer is he wouldn’t listen to anyone and would go off making half-baked decisions.

9. He Has No Substantive Policies

To say that Donald Trump is light on policy is an understatement. Political pundits had criticized the presidential candidate for not issuing any substantive policies for his campaign. Trump noted this and decided to issue his first policy. And what was it? He proposed to build a gigantic wall along the U.S.-Mexico border to keep out illegal immigrants. Reading this proposal to build a giant wall along the border on legitimate news sites was like reading the satirical news put out by The Onion. Not only is a proposal to build a wall to keep out Mexicans borderline racist behavior, it is also completely impractical and would be insanely expensive. So how does Donald Trump propose to pay for this wall? He plans to bill the Mexican government for the cost. Give us a break!

On other substantive policy issues, such as healthcare, Donald Trump says he plans to scrap Obamacare and replace it with “something terrific.” Asked to elaborate he said: “It’ll be great.” Well, that seems clear—not!

8. Donald Trump Has No Interest in the Broader World

There’s no question that Donald Trump is a proud American. In fact, there are only two things Trump consistently promotes—himself and the country he lives in. However, Donald Trump has shown that he has no interest in the wider world and what goes on beyond America’s borders. And while that might be fine when you’re a billionaire businessman, it could be disastrous if he becomes president. After all, much of the president’s role involves foreign policy. From brokering peace in the Middle East to providing aid during humanitarian crises and asserting military power where needed, being president requires an understanding of foreign relations, politics and diplomacy. And Donald Trump has none of those things. Interestingly, the last president to be accused of being a disaster on foreign relations was George W. Bush.

7. He Has No Political Experience

Donald Trump has never been an elected official. He has never held elected office of any kind. He’s never had to broker political compromise, give political speeches or pour over political briefing notes. So why on earth, with no experience in politics, would people think he’d make a good president? Sure, Donald Trump is a shameless self-promoter and experienced businessman. But Washington, D.C., is not Wall Street, and getting things done in the nation’s capital takes more than a big personality and strong will. If Donald Trump is elected president, he’ll quickly have to learn how to deal with his Democratic counterparts in the House of Representatives and Senate. He’ll also have to get used to the pace and minutiae of government—where things can move extremely slow. And he’ll have to get used to giving speeches on topics he may not be interested in—like housing for the poor, education and farm subsidies. Being in office, after all, is not the same as campaigning.

6. Donald Trump Is a Terrible Financial Manager

Most presidencies live and die based on the state of the U.S. economy. And despite how he likes to portray himself, Donald Trump is a terrible financial manager. In fact, Donald Trump has filed for bankruptcy protection four times. FOUR TIMES! In true Trump fashion, the Donald has said that those bankruptcy filings were strategic business decisions that enabled him to reorganize his assets and liabilities and make more money in the long run. But even if you buy that argument (and most people don’t), then basically you’re acknowledging that Donald Trump manipulates the financial system for his own gain. Either way, do you really want someone with Donald Trump’s checkered financial record as the steward of the world’s biggest economy? And aren’t most of the Wall Street fat cats that Washington politicians routinely prosecute friends of Trump’s? Any way you look at it, giving Donald Trump the national purse strings is a bad idea.

5. He’s Morally Questionable

The U.S. president is supposed to be an upright and moral person. They are supposed to be a God-fearing Christian and a devoted family man. Whether this is actually true or not is another story. But by appearances, the president is supposed to be above reproach. Ronald Reagan failed in his first bid to become president in 1976 because American voters had a hard time accepting that Rgan was divorced and Nancy was his second wife. And we all saw what happened to Bill Clinton when he was discovered having affairs inside the White House. Yet Donald Trump’s personal life has been fodder for the New York tabloids for years. Whether having an affair with Marla Maples, fathering a child out of wedlock, or being married three times, Donald Trump’s personal life is by far the most questionable of any presidential candidate ever. And he is not religious, which is something most American voters want in their president. Trump has claimed he is a Presbyterian and that he attends Marble Collegiate Church in New York City. But after he made this assertion, the church issued a statement saying that Trump is “not an active member.”

4. Donald Trump’s Business Dealings Are Also Questionable

From gambling in Atlantic City to professional wrestling and beauty pageants, Donald Trump’s many business ventures have always been questionable—which may help to explain the four bankruptcies. There have even been accusations leveled at Donald Trump (none proven) that he has been involved with the Mafia over the years. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston and investigative journalist Wayne Barrett wrote an unauthorized 1992 biography on Donald Trump where they alleged the business magnate and his companies did business with New York and Philadelphia families linked to the Mafia. Organized crime aside, do we really want a U.S. president who has hosted not one, but two Wrestlemanias? Donald Trump has even actively participated in World Wrestling Entertainment events with owner Vince McMahon. Could anyone see Jimmy Carter doing the same?

3. Donald Trump Sues Everyone

Politics is the art of compromise. But rather than work with anyone, Donald Trump sues everyone. Over the years, Trump has been embroiled in countless lawsuits that have to do with his businesses and anyone who criticizes him. Donald Trump famously sued comedian and political commentator Bill Maher for $5 million in 2013 after Maher jokingly offered to give $5 million to a charity if Trump could produce his birth certificate and prove that his mother had not mated with an orangutan. Apparently, Donald Trump did not find this funny. Over the years, Donald Trump has literally sued anyone, or any organization, that has gotten in his way. He sued Palm Beach County for $100 million because they refused to redirect airplanes further away from one of Trump’s estates. He claimed in the lawsuit that air traffic was ruining the ambience near his home. Palm Beach County responded that to move the air traffic would require that the Palm Beach International Airport be relocated. How will this behavior translate to the White House, where the president cannot launch a lawsuit every time he doesn’t get what he wants, but has to actually negotiate with people?

2. He’s Been Here Before

What Donald Trump excels at is his own self-promotion. And throughout his career, Trump has always seen political elections as an opportunity to generate free publicity for himself and the Trump brand. In fact, Donald Trump floated the idea of running for president in 1988, 2004, and 2012. He also mused about running for Governor of New York in 2006 and 2014, and has been linked to possible runs for Mayor of New York. Yet each time, Donald Trump has used his forays into politics to boost his own brand only to decide not to run, or pull out at the last minute. Politics is supposed to be about helping people and representing taxpaying constituents. But in the case of Donald Trump, politics has always been about representing himself.

1. He’s Intolerant and Insulting

Much of what makes America great is the political progress the country has made over the last century on women’s rights, racial equality, in the lives of people with disabilities and those with sexual preferences beyond a relationship between a man and a woman. Donald Trump threatens to undue all of this with his repeated attacks on women, minorities, and illegal immigrants. And while Trump’s inflammatory comments may appeal to extreme factions of the Republican Party and the Tea Party, they do not reflect the values that America was founded on or thrived on for more than 200 years. The United States has always been a great melting pot and place where people can succeed despite their background, race or gender. Barack Obama’s election as the first black U.S. President was a defining moment for the country. Why turn everything back now by electing Donald Trump? Forward progress people…

The U.S. presidential race, still in its earliest stages, has grabbed people’s attention due largely to the fact that Donald Trump is involved. And what initially seemed like a longshot at best has changed as public opinion polls show Donald Trump is now the Republican frontrunner to win the White House in 2016. Yet, would Donald Trump really make a good president? To date he has become the focal point of the presidential campaign by saying outrageous, inflammatory and derogatory things about women, minorities and immigrants. And while those sentiments may appeal to angry and disaffected voters, how would they translate if Donald Trump finds himself sitting in the Oval Office? American voters might want to give some serious consideration to that fact. And here are 10 reasons why Donald Trump would not only be a bad president, but likely the worst president ever.

10. Donald Trump Is Not Used to Listening to Anybody Else

There’s a saying that “a president is only as good as his advisors.” But who would, and could, advise Donald Trump? After all, this is the man whose catchphrase is “You’re fired!” Having run his own empire for nearly 40 years, Donald Trump is used to doing as he pleases and calling all the shots. He doesn’t listen to anyone—he’s certainly not listening to anyone on his campaign team who might be telling him to tone down his rhetoric. So how would he listen to an army of advisors who were trying to give him advice on domestic and foreign policy, the military and the economy? The answer is he wouldn’t listen to anyone and would go off making half-baked decisions.

9. He Has No Substantive Policies

To say that Donald Trump is light on policy is an understatement. Political pundits had criticized the presidential candidate for not issuing any substantive policies for his campaign. Trump noted this and decided to issue his first policy. And what was it? He proposed to build a gigantic wall along the U.S.-Mexico border to keep out illegal immigrants. Reading this proposal to build a giant wall along the border on legitimate news sites was like reading the satirical news put out by The Onion. Not only is a proposal to build a wall to keep out Mexicans borderline racist behavior, it is also completely impractical and would be insanely expensive. So how does Donald Trump propose to pay for this wall? He plans to bill the Mexican government for the cost. Give us a break!

On other substantive policy issues, such as healthcare, Donald Trump says he plans to scrap Obamacare and replace it with “something terrific.” Asked to elaborate he said: “It’ll be great.” Well, that seems clear—not!

8. Donald Trump Has No Interest in the Broader World

There’s no question that Donald Trump is a proud American. In fact, there are only two things Trump consistently promotes—himself and the country he lives in. However, Donald Trump has shown that he has no interest in the wider world and what goes on beyond America’s borders. And while that might be fine when you’re a billionaire businessman, it could be disastrous if he becomes president. After all, much of the president’s role involves foreign policy. From brokering peace in the Middle East to providing aid during humanitarian crises and asserting military power where needed, being president requires an understanding of foreign relations, politics and diplomacy. And Donald Trump has none of those things. Interestingly, the last president to be accused of being a disaster on foreign relations was George W. Bush.

7. He Has No Political Experience

Donald Trump has never been an elected official. He has never held elected office of any kind. He’s never had to broker political compromise, give political speeches or pour over political briefing notes. So why on earth, with no experience in politics, would people think he’d make a good president? Sure, Donald Trump is a shameless self-promoter and experienced businessman. But Washington, D.C., is not Wall Street, and getting things done in the nation’s capital takes more than a big personality and strong will. If Donald Trump is elected president, he’ll quickly have to learn how to deal with his Democratic counterparts in the House of Representatives and Senate. He’ll also have to get used to the pace and minutiae of government—where things can move extremely slow. And he’ll have to get used to giving speeches on topics he may not be interested in—like housing for the poor, education and farm subsidies. Being in office, after all, is not the same as campaigning.

6. Donald Trump Is a Terrible Financial Manager

Most presidencies live and die based on the state of the U.S. economy. And despite how he likes to portray himself, Donald Trump is a terrible financial manager. In fact, Donald Trump has filed for bankruptcy protection four times. FOUR TIMES! In true Trump fashion, the Donald has said that those bankruptcy filings were strategic business decisions that enabled him to reorganize his assets and liabilities and make more money in the long run. But even if you buy that argument (and most people don’t), then basically you’re acknowledging that Donald Trump manipulates the financial system for his own gain. Either way, do you really want someone with Donald Trump’s checkered financial record as the steward of the world’s biggest economy? And aren’t most of the Wall Street fat cats that Washington politicians routinely prosecute friends of Trump’s? Any way you look at it, giving Donald Trump the national purse strings is a bad idea.

5. He’s Morally Questionable

The U.S. president is supposed to be an upright and moral person. They are supposed to be a God-fearing Christian and a devoted family man. Whether this is actually true or not is another story. But by appearances, the president is supposed to be above reproach. Ronald Reagan failed in his first bid to become president in 1976 because American voters had a hard time accepting that Rgan was divorced and Nancy was his second wife. And we all saw what happened to Bill Clinton when he was discovered having affairs inside the White House. Yet Donald Trump’s personal life has been fodder for the New York tabloids for years. Whether having an affair with Marla Maples, fathering a child out of wedlock, or being married three times, Donald Trump’s personal life is by far the most questionable of any presidential candidate ever. And he is not religious, which is something most American voters want in their president. Trump has claimed he is a Presbyterian and that he attends Marble Collegiate Church in New York City. But after he made this assertion, the church issued a statement saying that Trump is “not an active member.”

4. Donald Trump’s Business Dealings Are Also Questionable

From gambling in Atlantic City to professional wrestling and beauty pageants, Donald Trump’s many business ventures have always been questionable—which may help to explain the four bankruptcies. There have even been accusations leveled at Donald Trump (none proven) that he has been involved with the Mafia over the years. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston and investigative journalist Wayne Barrett wrote an unauthorized 1992 biography on Donald Trump where they alleged the business magnate and his companies did business with New York and Philadelphia families linked to the Mafia. Organized crime aside, do we really want a U.S. president who has hosted not one, but two Wrestlemanias? Donald Trump has even actively participated in World Wrestling Entertainment events with owner Vince McMahon. Could anyone see Jimmy Carter doing the same?

3. Donald Trump Sues Everyone

Politics is the art of compromise. But rather than work with anyone, Donald Trump sues everyone. Over the years, Trump has been embroiled in countless lawsuits that have to do with his businesses and anyone who criticizes him. Donald Trump famously sued comedian and political commentator Bill Maher for $5 million in 2013 after Maher jokingly offered to give $5 million to a charity if Trump could produce his birth certificate and prove that his mother had not mated with an orangutan. Apparently, Donald Trump did not find this funny. Over the years, Donald Trump has literally sued anyone, or any organization, that has gotten in his way. He sued Palm Beach County for $100 million because they refused to redirect airplanes further away from one of Trump’s estates. He claimed in the lawsuit that air traffic was ruining the ambience near his home. Palm Beach County responded that to move the air traffic would require that the Palm Beach International Airport be relocated. How will this behavior translate to the White House, where the president cannot launch a lawsuit every time he doesn’t get what he wants, but has to actually negotiate with people?

2. He’s Been Here Before

What Donald Trump excels at is his own self-promotion. And throughout his career, Trump has always seen political elections as an opportunity to generate free publicity for himself and the Trump brand. In fact, Donald Trump floated the idea of running for president in 1988, 2004, and 2012. He also mused about running for Governor of New York in 2006 and 2014, and has been linked to possible runs for Mayor of New York. Yet each time, Donald Trump has used his forays into politics to boost his own brand only to decide not to run, or pull out at the last minute. Politics is supposed to be about helping people and representing taxpaying constituents. But in the case of Donald Trump, politics has always been about representing himself.

1. He’s Intolerant and Insulting

Much of what makes America great is the political progress the country has made over the last century on women’s rights, racial equality, in the lives of people with disabilities and those with sexual preferences beyond a relationship between a man and a woman. Donald Trump threatens to undue all of this with his repeated attacks on women, minorities, and illegal immigrants. And while Trump’s inflammatory comments may appeal to extreme factions of the Republican Party and the Tea Party, they do not reflect the values that America was founded on or thrived on for more than 200 years. The United States has always been a great melting pot and place where people can succeed despite their background, race or gender. Barack Obama’s election as the first black U.S. President was a defining moment for the country. Why turn everything back now by electing Donald Trump? Forward progress people…

The majority of Republicans are against Donald Trump

Republicans against Donald Trump helped elect Trump by voting downballot and not voting against Trump.

Which Republicans Oppose Donald Trump? A Cheat Sheet

Colin Powell has reportedly announced that he will back Hillary Clinton for president.

 

Colin Powell reportedly told the Long Island Association Tuesday afternoon that he is supporting Democrat Hillary Clinton in the presidential race.

Several people at the event tweeted that the former secretary of state and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff made his endorsement, including Newsday reporter Robert Brodsky

 His spokeswoman has not returned a request for comment.

Although he is a longtime Republican, Powell’s decision to endorse a Democrat is not shocking. He also backed Barack Obama in both 2008 and 2012, and in each of those cases made his announcement right around this time of year, in mid- to late-October. Nor is it altogether surprising that he would oppose Trump. A large number of generals, especially those in the centrist establishment, have criticized Trump as too friendly to Russia, unpredictable with nuclear weapons, and insufficiently attuned to the importance of America’s strategic allies, among other things.

 What adds some intrigue to the apparent Clinton endorsement is the revelation, in September, of a large tranche of Powell’s personal emails, in which he offered an unvarnished view on both candidates. (A spokeswoman confirmed the messages were real at the time.) Powell said Donald Trump  “has no sense of shame,” and is “a national disgrace” and “international pariah.” He said that “the whole birther movement was racist” and complained that the media was providing Trump with oxygen to fuel his campaign. He cracked jokes about Trump’s poor standing with women voters.

Yet he was also critical of Clinton. “Everything HRC touches she kind of screws up with hubris,” he complained. He criticized her handling of the controversy over her use of a private email server, and bristled at what he viewed as her aides’ attempts at clearing her, or at least mitigating the damage, by dragging him into the story.

“I would rather not have to vote for her, although she is a friend I respect,” he wrote in one apparent email from the leak.

When the emails leaked in September, it seemed like a moment of reckoning for someone like Powell. Did he speak out and endorse Clinton, who he thought would be better qualified but with whom he had some real gripes? Or did he keep quiet and hope that she was able to defeat Trump without him? Powell’s statement now comes as the likelihood of a Trump victory seems to be shrinking. It’s not clear why he decided to speak now, but his views seem clear.

How do you solve a problem like The Donald? For Republicans and conservatives, the time for hoping Trump would simply burn himself out, collapse, and go away is over. Now they have to figure out what they’ll do: Sign up with Trump in the name of party unity, and distaste for Hillary Clinton? Or risk alienating the Republican nominee and reject him?

As the chaotic and failed attempts to stop Trump over the last year have shown, there’s no obviously right choice for how conservatives should respond. But which choice are people making? Here’s a list of some major figures and where they stand on Trump—right now. We’ll keep it updated as other important people take stances, or as these ones change their views about Trump.

 

Party Elders

 

George W. Bush: ABSTAIN

The former president “does not plan to participate in or comment on the presidential campaign,” an aide told the Texas Tribune. (May 4, 2016)

George H.W. Bush: ABSTAIN

“At age 91, President Bush is retired from politics. He came out of retirement to do a few things for Jeb, but those were the exceptions that proved the rule,” an aide told the Texas Tribune. (May 4, 2016)

Barbara Bush: NAY

Unlike her husband and elder son, the former first lady has publicly disavowed Trump. “I mean, unbelievable. I don’t know how women can vote for someone who said what he said about Megyn Kelly, it’s terrible,” she told CBS in February. “And we knew what he meant too.” (February 4, 2016)

Mitt Romney: NAY

The party’s 2012 nominee, one of Trump’s staunchest critics during the primary, told The Wall Street Journal, “I wanted my grandkids to see that I simply couldn’t ignore what Mr. Trump was saying and doing, which revealed a character and temperament unfit for the leader of the free world.” Romney continued: “I know that some people are offended that someone who lost and is the former nominee continues to speak, but that’s how I can sleep at night.” (May 27, 2016)

Romney previously told The Washington Post he would skip the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, and said at a D.C. dinner that he won’t be supporting Trump. (May 5, 2016)

Bob Dole: YEA (formerly UNDECIDED)

The former Senate majority leader and 1996 GOP presidential nominee endorsed Trump on May 6. He will also be the only living GOP nominee to attend the RNC. (May 6, 2016.) Dole previously would not commit to voting for Trumpbut said in January that Trump would be preferable to Cruz. (May 5, 2016)

John Boehner: YEA

The former speaker, who says he and Trump are “texting buddies,” told an audience at Stanford University that he’d back Trump in the general election. (April 28, 2016)

Trent Lott: YEA

The former Senate majority leader told The Clarion-Ledger that he will back Trump, despite some reservations. (May 4, 2016)

Tom DeLay: UNDECIDED

Asked by reporter Jon Ward whether Clinton or Trump was worse, the former House majority leader responded, “I can’t answer that right now.” (June 21, 2016)

DeLay hadn’t spoken out since Trump’s ascension, but was highly critical of him during the primary: “We have got to stop Trump. Whatever it takes without cheating or violating the rules of the Republican primaries,” he told Newsmax.

Dick Cheney: YEA

The former vice president blasted Trump during the primary over his stance on 9/11, and said he “sounds like a liberal Democrat,” but he now says he will back the nominee. (May 6, 2016)

Newt Gingrich: YEA

The former speaker of the House did not formally endorse Trump during the primary, but he has repeatedly praised the mogul and his vision, and is said to be a contender for a position in a Trump administration.

Jeb Bush: NAY

The former Florida governor and presidential candidate came to detest Trump during the campaign. In April, he said he would not attend the Republican National Convention. He now says he will not vote for either Trump or Clinton. (May 6, 2016)

Reince Priebus: YEA

As chair of the Republican National Committee, Priebus doesn’t really have a choice, though that doesn’t mean he won’t pour Baileys in his cereal over it. (May 4, 2016)

 Priebus said on May 6 that Trump needs to change his tone.

Rick Perry: YEA

The former Texas governor and presidential candidate—who was one of the first to blast Trump—told CNN that he backs Trump. (5/5/16)

Mike Huckabee: YEA

The former Arkansas governor, who ran for president this year, says Republicans should get in line.  “When we nominated people over the past several election cycles, some of us had heartburn, but we stepped up and supported the nominee,” he said. “You’re either on the team, or you’re not on the team.” (May 5, 2016)

Bobby Jindal: YEA

The former Louisiana governor, who during his own presidential campaign called Trump a “narcissist” and an “egomaniacal madman,” wrote in a Wall Street Journal column that he’s voting for Trump, “warts and all.” “I think electing Donald Trump would be the second-worst thing we could do this November, better only than electing Hillary Clinton to serve as the third term for the Obama administration’s radical policies,” he said. (May 9, 2016)

Eric Cantor: YEA

Cantor, the former U.S. representative from Virginia and House majority leader, says he will back Trump, though he offered a tepid endorsement, saying a Trump-Clinton matchup was “probably not the best choice for anybody,” and adding, “He’s a businessman . . . [but] he’s been on so many sides of every issue that you never know.” (May 9, 2016)

Ben Carson: YEA

Carson, a relative political newcomer who ran for president in 2016, has become one of Trump’s most prominent surrogates, despite repeatedly voicing misgivings about the candidate.

Rick Santorum: YEA

The former Pennsylvania senator and two-time presidential candidate appeared, with Mike Huckabee, at a Trump rally back in January, when they were ostensibly rivals. (Both Santorum and Huckabee already seemed finished by then.) Despite Santorum’s strong social conservatism, he says that after “a long heart-to-heart with Donald Trump” he is “100 percent” endorsing the nominee. (May 25, 2016)

Karl Rove: UNDECIDED

The former George W. Bush strategist and current Wall Street Journal columnist and PAC boss has called Trump  “a complete idiot” who is “graceless and divisive.” (Trump, in turn, has asked, “Is he not the dumbest human being on earth?”) But The New York Times reports the two men met in May. (June 3, 2016)

Larry Pressler: NAY

A moderate and former three-term senator from South Dakota, Pressler has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. (June 14, 2016)

Herman Cain: YEA

Mr. 9-9-9, the 2012 GOP presidential candidate, introduced Trump at a rally in Atlanta, calling him “one of the great conservative voices in America today.” He had previously told Republicans who didn’t back Trump to “get over it” but also insisted it was not an endorsement. (June 15, 2016)

Norm Coleman: NAY

The former Minnesota senator wrote in a March 3 column that he will not support the Republican nominee. “I won’t vote for Donald Trump because of who he isn’t. He isn’t a Republican. He isn’t a conservative. He isn’t a truth teller…. I also won’t vote for Donald Trump because of who he is. A bigot. A misogynist. A fraud. A bully.” (July 7, 2016)

Michael Bloomberg: NAY

Does the former New York mayor count as a Republican? A former Democrat, he ran and was elected Big Apple head honcho as a Republican, though he later became an independent. In any case, Bloomberg is appalled by Trump, and he will speak on behalf of Hillary Clinton at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. (June 24, 2016)

Sally Bradshaw: NAY

Bradshaw, a longtime operative and aid to Jeb Bush, was an author of the GOP’s post-2012 “autopsy” report. Now she says she’s not even a member of the party. “Ultimately, I could not abide the hateful rhetoric of Donald Trump and his complete lack of principles and conservative philosophy. I didn’t make this decision lightly,” she told CNN. She said if Florida looks close, she will vote for Hillary Clinton in order to defeat Trump. (August 1, 2016)

Marc Racicot: NAY

Racicot, a confidant of former President George W. Bush who chaired the RNC from 2001 to 2003, tells Bloomberg, “I cannot and will not support Donald Trump for president.” (August 3, 2016)

Vin Weber: NAY

A former Minnesota congressman who helped Newt Gingrich bring the Republican Party to power and is now a lobbyist, Weber has ruled out Trump. “I won’t vote for Trump,” he told CNBC. “I can’t imagine I’d remain a Republican if he becomes president.” (August 3, 2016)

Gordon Humphrey: NAY

The former U.S. senator from New Hampshire says he cannot vote for Trump, calling him “a sociopath, without a conscience or feelings of guilt, shame or remorse.” Humphrey told NBC he may reluctantly vote for Hillary Clinton, but only if it’s a close contest. (August 4, 2016)

George P. Bush: YEA

The scion of the Bush family, who is currently Texas land commissioner, has broken with other members of the Bush clan, who have either pointedly abstained or said they would not vote for Trump. “From Team Bush, it’s a bitter pill to swallow, but you know what? You get back up and you help the man that won, and you make sure that we stop Hillary Clinton,” he said. (August 6, 2016)

Chris Shays: NAY

A longtime moderate Republican U.S. representative from Connecticut who lost his seat in 2008, Shays has endorsed Hillary Clinton. “I think many Republicans know Donald Trump could cause great damage to our country and the world at large, and still plan to vote for him. But not me,” Shays wrote for CNN. He said he backs Clinton not reluctantly but with “strong conviction.” (August 10, 2016)

Richard Viguerie: YEA

The direct-mail pioneer and social-conservative elder statesman was once a Trump critic, saying in February, “I’m just very concerned about his mental stability and his moral background, or lack thereof, which he brags about. He has no grounds that drive him morally.” More recently, however, he has taken to praising Trump. “I haven’t seen anything like this since the 1980 Reagan campaign against  Carter,” he said. (September 2, 2016)

Carly Fiorina: YEA (was ABSTAIN)

The former presidential candidate has called on Trump to step down and allow Mike Pence to take up the party’s mantle. She did not clearly state whether she would vote for Trump if he did not withdraw. (October 8, 2016)

Speaking to the Washington State Republican Party Thursday night, Fiorina said, “We must have President Trump—we can’t have President Clinton.” She is reportedly considering a run for RNC chair. (September 9, 2016)

Fiorina, who briefly served as Ted Cruz’s running mate before he left the race, feuded with Trump during the primary, particularly over disparaging comments he made about her face. She had not endorsed him publicly, and her spokeswoman told The Washington Examiner in June that she was focusing on down-ballot races.

Mike Murphy: NAY

Murphy, a veteran Republican who ran Jeb Bush’s failed campaign for president, has been an outspoken Trump critic. Following the first presidential debate, Murphy said only Clinton was “ready” to serve:

John Warner: NAY

Warner, the longtime Virginia senator and former secretary of the Navy, is endorsing Clinton. Warner, a World War II veteran who is still considered popular in Virginia, was always willing to buck his own party, sometimes voting against Republican leaders and endorsing Democrat Mark Warner (no relation) as his successor, but his backing should give Clinton a boost in Virginia. (September 28, 2016)

William Milliken: NAY

Milliken, a Republican who was Michigan’s longest-serving governor, holding office from 1969 to 1983, has crossed party lines to endorse Hillary Clinton over Trump. “Because I feel so strongly about our nation’s future, I will be joining the growing list of former and present government officials in casting my vote for Hillary Clinton for president in 2016,” he said. As the Detroit Free Press notes, this isn’t Milliken’s first time endorsing a Democrat, but it could help sway votes in a swing state. (August 8, 2016)

Mickey Edwards: NAY

Edwards, who represented Oklahoma in the U.S. House, chaired the American Conservative Union, and helped found the Heritage Foundation, has been critical of Trump for some time. In August, he signed a letter asking the Republican Party to divert money from the presidential race to down-ballot races to save GOP control of Congress, and he helped circulate a letter from retired members of Congress deeming Trump unacceptable. (October 6, 2016)

Jon Huntsman: NAY (was YEA)

Huntsman, a moderate former governor of Utah who served as ambassador to China under Barack Obama and ran for president in 2012, says Trump should withdraw and allow Mike Pence to run for president. (October 7, 2016)

Huntsman was previously among the first mainstream GOP figures to back Trump. “We’ve had enough intraparty fighting. Now’s the time to stitch together a winning coalition,” he said. “And it’s been clear almost from the beginning that Donald Trump has the ability to assemble a nontraditional bloc of supporters.” (April 29, 2016)

Christine Todd Whitman: NAY

The former governor of New Jersey and administrator of the EPA under George W. Bush is backing Hillary Clinton. “A Hillary presidency promises more of the Obama failed policies, but she would at least walk into the oval office ready to govern,” she wrote in a column. “She would be a steady hand on the nuclear code and she demonstrated a willingness to work across the aisle when she was in the senate.” (October 7, 2016)

Michael Steele: NAY

The former RNC chair and lieutenant governor of Maryland told an audience at a dinner honoring Mother Jones (seriously), “I was damn near puking during the debates,” adding that Trump had “captured that racist underbelly, that frustration, that angry underbelly of American life and gave voice to that.” He says he will not vote for Trump or Clinton. (October 21, 2016)

Mel Martinez: NAY

The former RNC chair and Florida senator says he won’t vote for Trump. “I would not vote for Trump, clearly,” he told The Wall Street Journal. “If there is any, any, any other choice, a living, breathing person with a pulse, I would be there.” (February 29, 2016)

Ken Mehlman: NAY

The former RNC chair wrote on Facebook that he was #NeverTrump. (May 12, 2016)

 

Representatives

Paul Ryan: YEA (was UNDECIDED)

The House speaker says he cannot and will not defend Trump any longer, and he said he will instead focus on trying to save Republican control of Congress. He has not, however, withdrawn his endorsement. (October 10, 2016)

Ryan condemned Trump over a tape in which he made lewd comments about women and discussed groping them without consent, disinviting him from a campaign event. But Ryan did not say he had changed his mind about an endorsement. (October 7, 2016)

Ryan once again affirmed his backing for Trump, offering the-less-than-resounding statement, “That’s not my plan. I don’t have a plan to do that.” (June 16, 2016)

has condemned Trump’s attacks on Judge Gonzalo Curiel’s as “absolutely unacceptable,” saying, “Claiming a person can’t do their job because of their race is sort of like the textbook definition of a racist comment,” but adding that he isn’t dropping his support for Trump. (June 7, 2016)

Ryan previously announced that he will vote for Trump.

Ryan said he had become convinced that Trump would help Ryan enact his House agenda. (June 2, 2016)

Ryan initially said he intended to support the Republican nominee, but after Trump clinched the nomination, he said he was not yet prepared to back Trump. “To be perfectly candid with you, I’m just not ready to that at this point,” he told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “I’m not there. I hope to, and I want to.” He said the party needs “a standard-bearer that bears our standards.” (May 5, 2016)

Kevin McCarthy: YEA

The House majority leader, a Californian, has broken with Speaker Paul Ryan and will back Trump. McCarthy has signed up as a prospective delegate for Trump in the Golden State. (May 10, 2016)

Steve Scalise: YEA

The House majority whip, a Louisiana representative, offered Trump a tepid endorsement. (The two men share the dubious distinction of being linked politically to David Duke.) “I’ve always said that I will support the Republican nominee,” Scalise said. “Now is the time for for our party to unite around Donald Trump so that we can focus on defeating Hillary Clinton in November to prevent another four years of job-killing, big government policies so we can get our economy back on track.” (May 5, 2016)

Cathy McMorris Rodgers: YEA (formerly UNDECIDED)

The Washington representative, who is chair of the House Republican Caucus, offered Trump a tepid endorsement, pointing out that he was the choice of primary voters, but adding, “In the months ahead, he will have to earn the presidency by demonstrating that he has the temperament for the job and plans to empower every American to pursue a future of opportunity and freedom.” (May 19, 2016)

McMorris Rodgers previously said she had not made up her mind. “Before I endorse him, I would like to have a conversation with him. I would like to ask him questions about some of the statements he’s made,” she told The Spokesman-Review. (May 5, 2016)

Raul Labrador: YEA

The Idaho congressman, a Tea Party hero, tepidly backs Trump after opposing him in the primary and backing Cruz. “There are some things he doesn’t quite understand,” Labrador told The Huffington Post. “With Trump, I have at least some hope that he’s going to make the right choice.”

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen: NAY

The senior member of the Florida congressional delegation says she will write Jeb Bush’s name in on the ballot in November. (August 11, 2016)

Ros-Lehtinen, who was born in Cuba and emigrated to the United States, has said she will not vote for Trump. “I will work with whomever is chosen by the American people to serve as president, because I deeply respect the American constitutional system,” she said in a statement. “In this election, I do not support either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.” (May 6, 2016)

Fred Upton: ABSTAIN

The longtime Michigan congressman (and, true fact, uncle of Kate) has called on Trump to withdraw from the race.

Upton previously said he would not endorse Trump, though he stopped short of saying he would not vote for him.  “There’s a lot of things that folks are not happy about with either of these two candidates,” he said during a radio interview. “We’re running our own race, and don’t look for me to endorse anyone in this race probably the rest of the year.” (June 16, 2016)

Richard Hanna: NAY

Hanna, a retiring congressman who represents a swing district in central New York, is the first House Republican to say he will vote for Hillary Clinton. “For me, it is not enough to simply denounce [Trump’s] comments: He is unfit to serve our party and cannot lead this country,” Hanna wrote in the Syracuse Post-Standard.“Secretary Clinton has issues that depending on where one stands can be viewed as great or small…. While I disagree with her on many issues, I will vote for Mrs. Clinton.” (August 2, 2016)

Charlie Dent: NAY

Dent, a moderate Republican who represents southeastern Pennsylvania, said he doesn’t intend to vote for Trump or Clinton. “I’m not planning to vote for either of the two major-party nominees and I’m not ready to say I’m going to vote for the libertarians either,” he told Jake Tapper. (August 2, 2016)

Adam Kinzinger: NAY

The Illinois representative, a former Air Force pilot hails from a district west and south of Chicago, criticized Ted Cruz when he didn’t endorse Trump at the RNC. But then after Trump suggested not supporting NATO allies, Kinzinger described the idea as “utterly disastrous,” and he now tells CNN, “I don’t see how I can get there anymore.” (August 3, 2016)

Mike Coffman: NAY (was UNDECIDED)

The Colorado representative has issued a statement calling for Trump to leave the ticket, in the wake of the publication of a video in which Trump made lewd comments about women and discussed groping them without consent. “For the good of the country, and to give the Republicans a chance of defeating Hillary Clinton, Mr. Trump should step aside,” he said. (October 8, 2016)

Coffman was previously vague on his position. In atelevision ad, he said, “People ask me, ‘What do you think about Trump?’ Honestly, I don’t care for him much. And I certainly don’t trust Hillary.” He promised to “stand up to” Trump. A spokeswoman said he was considering other candidates, but had not ruled out voting for the nominee. (August 4, 2016)

Bob Dold: NAY

The Illinois congressman, who represents the northern suburbs of Chicago, was among the first Republicans to say he would not vote for Trump. “Whether it be Mr. Trump’s comments about women, his comments about Muslims, his comments about Latinos, for me it was very personal his comments about POWs,” Dold told WLS in May, adding, “I want to make that I’m clear about this, I’m not going to support Hillary Clinton either.  I would write someone in.” (May 6, 2016)

Scott Rigell: NAY

The Virginia congressman, who represents the Virginia Beach area, has become the first Republican member of Congress to say that he will vote for Libertarian Gary Johnson. Rigell says he long ago decided he could not back Trump. “When their own conscience is seared by some statement that Trump has made, I have encouraged them to be direct and also, in a timely manner, repudiate what he said,” he told The New York Times. (August 7, 2016)

Dave Reichert: NAY (was UNDECIDED)

The Washington congressman, who represents a district just east of Seattle, saysthat after the release of a video in which Trump boasts about sexually assaulting women, “Donald Trump has lost my vote.”

Reichert previously said in an interview with KIRO radio that he would “never” endorse Trump. But he also said he wouldn’t vote for Clinton, and when pressed on whether he would vote for Trump, he added, “I never said I wouldn’t vote for him, I just said I wouldn’t endorse him.” (August 11, 2016)

Mark Sanford: YEA

The South Carolina conservative and former governor (as you may recall) is backing Trump—he writes in a New York Times op-ed calling on the nominee to release his tax returns. “I am a conservative Republican who, though I have no stomach for his personal style and his penchant for regularly demeaning others, intends to support my party’s nominee because of the importance of filling the existing vacancy on the Supreme Court, and others that might open in the next four years.” (August 16, 2016)

Reid Ribble: NAY

The Wisconsin congressman has consistently been an outspoken Trump critic. He said in December that he would not back Trump if he became the nominee. In June, he said Trump was “likely to be a racist.” Now, along with Representative Scott Rigell and a slew of operatives, he has signed a letter asking the RNC to withdraw resources from the Trump campaign and concentrate on holding Congress. (August 16, 2016)

Mac Thornberry: UNDECIDED

Thornberry, a Texan who heads the House Armed Services Committee, has not endorsed Trump and skipped the Republican National Convention. Asked repeatedly on MSNBC whether he had confidence in Trump’s qualifications to serve as commander-in-chief, Thornberry deflected, saying he had concerns about both Trump and Hillary Clinton. (September 7, 2016)

Jason Chaffetz: YEA (was NAY and previously YEA)

Chaffetz, a Utahn who chairs the House Oversight Committee, tweeted that while he would not “endorse” Trump, he would still publicly announce his plans to vote for the Republican nominee.

Chaffetz previously announced that he was withdrawing his support from Trump over a tape in which he made lewd comments about women and discussed groping them without consent. “I’m out. I can no longer in good conscience endorse this person for president. It is some of the most abhorrent and offensive comments that you can possibly imagine,” he said. (October 7, 2016)

Chaffetz previously voiced his support for Trump.

Barbara Comstock: NAY (was UNDECIDED)

The Virginia representative announced she is withdrawing her support for Trump. “I cannot in good conscience vote for Donald Trump,” she told The Washington Post. (October 7, 2016)

Comstock previously said she had not yet decided whether to endorse or vote for the GOP nominee.

Martha Roby: NAY (was YEA)

Roby, who represents the Montgomery, Alabama, area says she will no longer support Trump. “Donald Trump’s behavior makes him unacceptable as a candidate for president and I won’t vote for him,” she said. (October 8, 2016)

Roby previously endorsed Trump after he won the nomination, while expressing reservations. (May 16, 2016)

Joe Heck: NAY (was YEA)

Heck, a Nevadan who is the GOP’s candidate for U.S. Senate, has withdrawn his support for Trump over a video in which Trump boasts about sexually assaulting women. He called on Trump to step down. (October 8, 2016)

Heck previously endorsed Trump.

Cresent Hardy: NAY (was YEA)

Hardy, who represents Nevada, says he will no longer support Trump. (October 8, 2016)

Hardy previously tried to say that while he supported the GOP nominee, he somehow did not “endorse” him. (August 31, 2016)

Mia Love: NAY (was UNDECIDED)

The Utah representative has said that after the release of a video in which Trump boasts about sexually assaulting women, she cannot vote for him. “His behavior and bravado have reached a new low. I cannot vote for him,” she said. “For the good of the party, he should step aside.” She had not previously decided whether to back him. (October 8, 2016)

Will Hurd: NAY (was UNDECIDED)

The Texan, who represents a swath of West Texas, told the El Paso Times, “I never endorsed Trump and I cannot in good conscience support or vote for a man who degrades women, insults minorities and has no clear path to keep our country safe.” (October 8, 2016)

Steve Knight: NAY (was UNDECIDED)

Knight, a Californian who represents parts of Los Angeles County, says he will not back Trump: “While I’ve never before endorsed a Presidential candidate, I’ve felt compelled to strongly condemn many of Mr. Trump’s previous outrageous remarks. And after serious consideration, I have decided that I cannot support either candidate for President.” (October 8, 2016)

John Katko: NAY (was UNDECIDED)

The upstate New York representative, who had not previously endorsed Trump, now wants him to drop out. “I am certainly not going to vote for him,” he said. (October 8, 2016)

Kay Granger: NAY (was UNDECIDED)

The Texan, who had not endorsed Trump, has called on him to withdraw in the wake of a video in which he boasts about sexually assaulting women. (October 8, 2016)

Rodney Davis: NAY (was YEA)

The Missouri representative has called on Trump to step down in favor of Mike Pence. “I am rescinding my support for Donald Trump and asking to have my name removed from his agriculture advisory committee,” he said. (October 8, 2016)

Davis endorsed Trump following the Republican primary. “I think what we have is a choice between two candidates for president, and the choice is pretty clear on which one is going to be tougher on national security issues, which one is going to put America’s interest first,” he said.

Ann Wagner: NAY (was YEA)

The Missourian has called on Trump to step down and says she will not support for him. “As a strong and vocal advocate for victims of sex trafficking and assault, I must be true to those survivors and myself and condemn the predatory and reprehensible comments of Donald Trump,” she said. (October 8, 2016)

Wagner had previously endorsed Trump.

Chris Stewart: YEA

The Utahn called on Trump to withdraw in favor of Mike Pence, but he did not say whether he would vote for the GOP ticket if Trump did not. (October 8, 2016)

Stewart previously endorsed Trump despite having called him “our Mussolini.” (May 9, 2016)

Bradley Byrne: YEA (was UNCLEAR and YEA)

The Alabaman’s spokesman has clarified that Byrne intends to vote for the Trump ticket. (October 11, 2016)

Byrne previously said that Trump should step aside and allow Mike Pence to lead the ticket, but he did not say whether he would vote for Trump if he did not withdraw. (October 8, 2016)

Byrne had previously tepidly endorsed Trump. “It’s not a choice between Hillary Clinton and somebody else. If you want to defeat Hillary Clinton, you must vote for Donald Trump,” he said. (July 25, 2016)

Tom Rooney: NAY (was YEA)

The Floridian says he will not vote for Trump in the wake of a video in which Trump boasted about sexually assaulting women. Rooney will also not vote for Clinton. (October 8, 2016)

Rooney was one of the earliest members of Congress to back Trump. “I’m a Republican and he’s our nominee. All these people who are saying they’re not going to support who the Republican primary electorate has chosen need to re-evaluate why they’re part of this team. The people have spoken and you have to respect that.” (May 4, 2016)

Erik Paulsen: NAY (was UNDECIDED and YEA)

The Minnesotan, who faces a tough reelection race, called a video in which Trump boasted about sexually assaulting women “disgusting and offensive,” adding, “I will not be voting for him.” (October 9, 2016)

Paulsen had previously promised to vote for the GOP nominee, but in August said that Trump had not yet earned his vote. (August 17, 2016)

Frank LoBiondo: NAY (was YEA)

The New Jersey representative says he will vote for Mike Pence instead of Donald Trump. “I cannot support and will not vote for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton to be president of the United States,” he said. (October 8, 2016)

LoBiondo previously endorsed Trump.

Jamie Herrera Beutler: NAY (was UNDECIDED)

The Washington representative says that in the wake of a video in which Trump boasts about sexually assaulting women, she will write in Speaker Paul Ryan for president. (October 8, 2016)

Herrerra Beutler had previously not endorsed Trump but said she hoped he would earn her support.

 

Senators

Mitch McConnell: YEA

The Senate majority leader issued a statement tepidly backing Trump. “I have committed to supporting the nominee chosen by Republican voters, and Donald Trump, the presumptive nominee is now on the verge of clinching that nomination,” he said. (May 4, 2016)

Ted Cruz: YEA (was APPARENT NAY and UNDECIDED)

The Texas senator, for months one of the highest profile holdouts among Republicans, has decided to endorse Donald Trump, he wrote in a Facebook post: “A year ago, I pledged to endorse the Republican nominee, and I am honoring that commitment. And if you don’t want to see a Hillary Clinton presidency, I encourage you to vote for him.” (September 23, 2016)

The Texas senator made his opinion about Trump fairly clear when he was given a prized speaking slot at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Cruz refused to endorse the nominee, offering some barbed, double-edged comments like this: “Don’t stay home in November. Stand, and speak, and vote your conscience, vote for candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom and to be faithful to the Constitution.” He was booed off the stage. Trump then said he’d refuse to accept Cruz’s endorsement if offered, which doesn’t seem likely to be an issue.

Cruz had previously floated the idea—likely unrealistic—of reanimating his suspending campaign and refused to endorse Trump. “We’ll see what happens as the months go forward, I think we need to watch and see what the candidates say and do,” he told Glenn Beck. (May 10, 2016)

In dropping out of the Republican race after losing to Trump, Cruz did not make any indication whether he was willing to back his rival. (May 3, 2016)

Jeff Sessions: YEA

The Alabama senator was Trump’s first endorser from the Senate, and he has been a high-profile backer and adviser to Trump’s campaign.

Susan Collins: NAY (was UNDECIDED)

The moderate Maine senator writes in a Washington Post column that she has decided she cannot vote for Trump. “I have become increasingly dismayed by his constant stream of cruel comments and his inability to admit error or apologize,” she writes. “But it was his attacks directed at people who could not respond on an equal footing—either because they do not share his power or stature or because professional responsibility precluded them from engaging at such a level—that revealed Mr. Trump as unworthy of being our president.” She has not said for whom she will vote. (August 9, 2016)

Collins previously told Time that she was in wait-and-see mode. “I’ve said from the point that it became obvious that Donald Trump was going to be the Republican candidate that I’d always supported previous presidential nominees of my party but that in this case I was going to wait and see what happened and that is what I am continuing to do.” (June 7, 2016)

Having previously said that her backing from Trump would be contingent upon a shift in his rhetoric, Collins then said she would support the nominee. (May 6, 2016)

Collins said: “I have always supported the Republican nominee for president, and I suspect I would do so this year, but I do want see what Donald Trump does from here on out.” To win her vote, “He’s going to have stop with gratuitous personal insults,” she said, amusingly. (May 4, 2016)

John McCain: NAY (was YEA)

The Arizona senator and 2008 GOP presidential nominee, who is in a tight reelection battle, has announced he no longer supports Trump. “I thought it important I respect the fact that Donald Trump won a majority of the delegates by the rules our party set,” he said in a statement. “But Donald Trump’s behavior this week, concluding with the disclosure of his demeaning comments about women and his boasts about sexual assaults, make it impossible to continue to offer even conditional support for his candidacy.” (October 8, 2016)

McCain released a scorching statement criticizing Trump for his comments about Gold Star parents Khizr and Ghazala Khan, but he did not revoke his support. (August 1, 2016)

McCain has said publicly that he’ll back the nominee. In a private recording obtained by Politico, however, he frets that Trump endangers his reelection effort, while his former top aide Mark Salter is backing Clinton. (May 5, 2016)

Kelly Ayotte: NAY (was YEA)

The New Hampshire senator says she will not vote for Trump in the wake of a video in which he boasts of sexually assaulting women. “I wanted to be able to support my party’s nominee,” she said, but “I am a mom and an American first, and I cannot and will not support a candidate who brags about degrading and assaulting women.” (October 8, 2016)

Like her friend John McCain, the New Hampshire senator attacked Trump for his feud with Gold Star parents Khizr and Ghazala Khan, pronouncing herself “appalled” but giving no indication that she will withdraw backing for Trump. (August 1, 2016)

Ayotte, who is also in a tight reelection battle, previously said she plans to “support” but not “endorse” Trump, whatever that means. (May 5, 2016)

Rand Paul: YEA

In a fascinating interview with WDRB (via Reason), the Kentucky senator and former presidential candidate said citizens should vote their conscience, while suggesting that he was only publicly backing Trump because he had pledged during the primary to support the nominee. “I’ve made my complaints about our nominee quite explicit. I continue to do so, but also don’t see it as my job now—the thing is, is: I do think that my word is important. I signed a document, not under duress, but I signed a document saying I wouldn’t run as a third party and I will support the nominee.” (August 2, 2016)

Paul has said he will support Trump. (His father, ex-congressman and presidential contender Ron Paul, says he will not.) (May 4, 2016)

Lindsey Graham: NAY

The South Carolina senator and former presidential candidate blasted Trump following the nominee’s attacks on Judge Gonzalo Curiel, saying fellow Republicans should withdraw their endorsements. “This is the most un-American thing from a politician since Joe McCarthy,” he said. “If anybody was looking for an off-ramp, this is probably it. There’ll come a time when the love of country will trump hatred of Hillary.” (June 7, 2016)

Graham was one of Trump’s most prominent critics during the primary, even endorsing Cruz even though he’d previously likened the choice between him and Trump to a choice between poisoning and being shot. The day Trump won Indiana, Graham tweeted:

Lindsey Graham 

✔@LindseyGrahamSC

If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed…….and we will deserve it.

11:03 PM – 3 May 2016

Graham says he will not vote for either Trump or Clinton. (May 6, 2016)

Ben Sasse: NAY

The Nebraska freshman senator was another anti-Trump ringleader, and has been suggested as a third-party candidate. In a long Facebook post, he explained why he’s still not backing Trump. (May 4, 2016)

Marco Rubio: SOFT YEA

The Florida senator and former presidential candidate said he does not plan to attend the Republican National Convention, but he has not made any statement changing his stance on Trump. (July 6, 2016)

In an interview with The Weekly Standard, Rubio said that although he has backed Trump, who he views as preferable to Hillary Clinton, he still believes what he said during the presidential campaign: That Trump is unfit for the presidency and cannot be trusted with the nation’s nuclear arsenal. (June 9, 2016)

Rubio, who previously referred to Trump as a “con artist,” now says he backs Trump, will attend the Republican National Convention, and will release his remaining delegates to Trump. “I want to be helpful. I don’t want to be harmful, because I don’t want Hillary Clinton to be president,” he told Jake Tapper. (May 26, 2016)

Rubio had previously not spoken about the race since Trump became the presumptive nominee, but in late April he said that he’d support Trump in order to beat Hillary Clinton. (April 21, 2016)

Rob Portman: NAY (was YEA)

The Ohio senator has withdrawn his endorsement of Trump. “While I continue to respect those who still support Donald Trump, I can no longer support him,” he said in a statement. “I continue to believe our country cannot afford a Hillary Clinton presidency. I will be voting for Mike Pence for President.” (October 8, 2016)

Portman, who now seems to have the clear upper-hand in his reelection fight, previously said he’d back the Republican nominee. Most recently, he said that having Trump on the ticket would be positive for his own hopes. (May 5, 2016)

Richard Burr: YEA

The North Carolinian, who also faces a tough reelection, supports Trump. (May 4, 2016)

 Follow Richard Burr 

✔@BurrForSenate

2/3: I look forward to working with Mr. Trump at the top of the ticket and to maintaining a #GOP Senate.

Roy Blunt: YEA

The Missourian, who is up for reelection, says he will support the nominee. (May, 5, 2016)

Ron Johnson: YEA

The Wisconsin senator, who is battling predecessor Russ Feingold, is one of the most precarious Republicans this year. He tepidly backed Trump. “As Ron has repeatedly said for months, he intends to support the Republican nominee, but he’s focused on the concerns of Wisconsinites—not national political winds,” a spokesman told Roll Call. (May 5, 2016)

Pat Toomey: UNDECIDED

The Pennsylvania senator, another endangered incumbent, has not made up his mind. “As I have said repeatedly, I have not endorsed Donald Trump,” he said at a press conference. “There are things that he has said, a number of things he has said and done that give me great pause and I have significant concerns about, so I remain in a mode of waiting to be persuaded. I’ve not made a final decision on what I’m going to do. Hillary Clinton is completely unacceptable to me.” (August 10, 2016)

Toomey previously said: “It certainly looks like Donald Trump is on his way to the nomination .… Donald Trump was not my first choice. He wasn’t my second choice or third or fourth choice. I have lots have differences with Donald Trump and lots of problems with him but I am absolutely in the ‘never Hillary Clinton’ camp.” (May 4, 2016)

Mark Kirk: NAY (was YEA)

The Illinois senator, one of this year’s most endangered incumbents, says he will write in Colin Powell for president. (August 11, 2016)

Kirk previously announced that he is no longer supporting Donald Trump—the first Republican to rescind his backing. “After much consideration, I have concluded that Donald Trump has not demonstrated the temperament necessary to assume the greatest office in the world,” he said.  (June 7, 2016)

Kirk previously said he’d back Trump if nominated.

Tom Cotton: YEA

The rising-star Arkansas senator weakly endorsed Trump. “I’ve long said that I will support the Republican nominee because we can’t afford a third Obama-Clinton term,” he said. He had previously criticized Trump for mocking John McCain, but also said Trump would be “a more serious leader for our country” that Clinton. (May 5, 2016)

Bob Corker: YEA

The Tennessee senator, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has said he is willing to help Trump. Corker praised Trump’s otherwise widely panned foreign-policy address and is reportedly talking to him about overseas matters. He’s been mentioned as VP candidate. (May 10, 2016)

Mike Lee: UNDECIDED

Lee, a conservative Utahan and close associate of Ted Cruz, demanded that Trump step down. “Donald Trump is a distraction. It’s time for him to step aside so we can focus on the winning ideas that will carry Republicans through to a victory in November,” he said in a statement. Lee did not make clear whether he would support Trump if he did not step down.

Lee had not made his decision, but lashed out at conservative radio host Steve Malzberg for pressing him to back Trump. “We can get into the fact that he accused my best friend’s father of conspiring to kill JFK,” he said. “We can go through the fact that he’s made statements that some have identified correctly as religiously intolerant. We can get into the fact that he’s wildly unpopular in my state, in part because my state consists of people who are members of a religious minority church.” He didn’t, however, rule out backing Trump in the future. (June 30, 2016)

Lee previously expressed reservations. “I have not supported Donald Trump up to this point, I have not endorsed him,” Lee said, according to the Washington Examiner. “I have some concerns with him. He scares me to death; so does Hillary Clinton …. I’ll make the decision as best I can, but I’m not there yet.” (May 11, 2016)

Orrin Hatch: YEA

The Utah senator, a longtime Washington fixture, backed Marco Rubio in the primary. After meeting with Trump on May 12, he said, “I totally endorse him.” Hatch also offered to help Trump pick Supreme Court nominees—moving to dampen one of the biggest conservative objections to Trump, which is that he can’t be trusted to select justices. (May 12, 2016)

Tim Scott: YEA

The South Carolinian, the GOP’s only black senator, quietly backed Trump after supporting Marco Rubio in the primary. He called Trump’s comments about Judge Gonzalo Curiel “racially toxic,” but is not rescinding his endorsement. (June 7, 2016)

Jeff Flake: NAY

The Arizona senator says he cannot at this point back Trump. “It’s uncomfortable not having endorsed the Republican nominee, I have to say,” he said. “But I can’t at this point. I hope to be able to support the nominee. I certainly can’t right now.” (June 7, 2016)

John Cornyn: YEA

The Texas senator said in May, “I’m for the nominee of the party; if it’s Donald Trump, I’ll support him wholeheartedly.” He’s gone back and forth, warning in February that Trump could be “an albatross around the down-ballot races.” More recently, he’s announced he simply won’t talk about Trump. “Wish me luck,” he said. (June 15, 2016)

Dean Heller: SOFT NAY

The Nevada senator told Politico he is currently opposed to Trump, though he wouldn’t rule out changing his mind. “Today, I’m opposed to his campaign,” he said. “He did a lot of damage. It’s very difficult for him, as far as I’m concerned, to recover from his previous comments. I’ll give him a chance, but at this point, I have no intentions of voting for him.” (June 30, 2016)

Lisa Murkowski: NAY (was UNDECIDED)

The Alaska senator has said she cannot back Trump and asked him to withdraw over a video in which he boasts of sexually assaulting women. “The video that surfaced yesterday further revealed his true character,” she said. “He not only objectified women, he bragged about preying upon them. I cannot and will not support Donald Trump for President—he has forfeited the right to be our party’s nominee. He must step aside.” (October 8, 2016)

Murkowski, who has turned particularly moderate since the 2010 election, in which she lost a GOP primary but won reelection as a write-in candidate, tells the AP she has not made up her mind about the election. “I’ve got a few months to listen, as other Americans are, to what is laid down in terms of policy, and we’ll figure it out,” she said. (August 10, 2016)

Cory Gardner: NAY (was YEA)

The Colorado senator has changed his mind and will not vote for Trump. ““If Donald Trump wishes to defeat Hillary Clinton, he should do the only thing that will allow us to do so—step aside, and allow Mike Pence to be the Republican party’s nominee,” he said. “If he fails to do so, I will not vote for Hillary Clinton but will instead write-in my vote for Mike Pence.” (October 8, 2016)

At a rally, the Colorado senator gave Trump a backhanded endorsement. “I’m voting Republican up and down the ticket. A Republican president will make a difference, even a Republican president named Donald Trump,” he said. Gardner previously called Trump a “buffoon.” (August 18, 2016)

Mike Crapo: YEA (was NAY and previously YEA)

The Idaho senator now says he will back Donald Trump, despite previously rescinding his endorsement. In a statement, Crapo said he would back Trump to prevent a Hillary Clinton presidency. (October 24, 2016)

Crapo had withdrawn his backing for Trump over a video in which Trump boasts of sexually assaulting women. “I have reached the decision that I can no longer endorse Donald Trump,” he said. “This is not a decision that I have reached lightly, but his pattern of behavior has left me no choice. His repeated actions and comments toward women have been disrespectful, profane and demeaning.” (October 8, 2016)

Crapo previously was slow to endorse Trump but threw him his support after he locked up the nomination, saying, “Congratulations to Donald Trump on his nomination victory. I strongly support his candidacy for president and now we can come together to support his call for less government and more support for veterans, law enforcement and increased safety and security.” (July 19, 2016)

Shelley Moore Capito: YEA

The West Virginian has called on Trump to withdraw over a video in which he boasts about sexually assaulting women. She did not say whether she would refuse to vote for him if he remained. (October 8, 2016)

Capito endorsed Trump following the West Virginia primary.

John Thune: UNCLEAR

The South Dakotan, who is the third-ranking Republican in the Senate, called on the nominee to step down. “Donald Trump should withdraw and Mike Pence should be our nominee effective immediately,” he tweeted. But Thune did not make clear whether he would continue to support Trump if he did not withdraw. (October 8, 2016)

Thune previously endorsed Trump. “We have to get it right in 2016 because the future of our country is hanging in the balance in so many different ways,” he said. “And there are three words that ought to scare everyone in this room: President Hillary Clinton.” (May 31, 2016)

Dan Sullivan: NAY (was YEA)

Alaska’s other senator says Trump should withdraw, and said he would vote for Mike Pence. (October 8, 2016)

Sullivan had previously backed the nominee. “While I don’t support some of the rhetoric Donald Trump has used in his campaign, nor some of his policy ideas, I plan on supporting the Republican nominee at this time,” he said. (May 4, 2016)

Deb Fischer: YEA

The Nebraskan, a major Trump backer, confirmed that she will still vote for him. “I plan to vote for Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence on November 8,” she told KLIN. “I put out a statement … with regard to Mr. Trump’s comments. I felt they were disgusting. I felt they were unacceptable and I never said I was not voting for our Republican ticket.” (October 11, 2016)

Fischer harshly criticized Trump after the release of a video in which he boasted about sexually assaulting women. “The comments made by Mr. Trump were disgusting and totally unacceptable under any circumstance,” she said. “It would be wise for him to step aside and allow Mike Pence to serve as our party’s nominee.” But Fischer did not say whether she would vote for Trump if he did not withdraw. (October 8, 2016)

Fischer previously backed Trump. “He has tapped into where people are in this country,” she said. “They’re supporting Donald Trump. Truly.” (May 13, 2016)

Governors

Chris Christie: YEA

The New Jersey governor and former presidential candidate was Trump’s first major establishment endorser, and has been a staunch ally.

Paul LePage: YEA

Maine’s sometimes-racist governor had backed Christie, but he quickly endorsedTrump after Christie did.

John Kasich: NAY (was SOFT NAY)

In the wake of a video in which Trump brags about sexually assaulting women, the Ohio governor and final Republican challenger to leave the race formally said he did not support Trump. “The actions of the last day are disgusting, but that’s not why I reached this decision, it has been an accumulation of his words and actions that many have been warning about,” he said in a statement. “I will not vote for a nominee who has behaved in a manner that reflects so poorly on our country.” (October 8, 2016)

Kasich previously had not entirely slammed the door on backing Trump, but he said he cannot do so now. “We’ll see where it ends up. I’m not making any final decision yet, but at this point, I just can’t do it,” he said. (June 16, 2016)

Kasich previously had not said whether he’ll back Trump. In his comments leaving the race, Kasich pointedly did not mention Trump or indicate his leaning. (May 4, 2016)

Nikki Haley: YEA

The governor of South Carolina tangled with Trump ahead of that state’s primary, and was elegantly withering toward him at the time. But she says she will back him. “I have great respect for the will of the people, and as I have always said, I will support the Republican nominee for president,” she said. (May 4, 2016)

Brian Sandoval: NAY (was UNDECIDED and previously YEA)

The Nevada governor, a moderate conservative, has withdrawn his backing over a video in which Trump boasts about sexually assaulting women. “This video exposed not just words, but now an established pattern which I find to be repulsive and unacceptable for a candidate for President of the United States,” Sandoval said in a statement. “I cannot support him as my party’s nominee.” (October 8, 2016)

Sandoval once said he would back the GOP nominee, but now says he is “not sure.” “I will only say that you can’t defend the indefensible,” he said after Trump attacked Judge Gonzalo Curiel. (June 7, 2016)

Sandoval previously said he was no fan of Trump but will back him. “I plan to vote for the presumptive nominee although it is no secret that we do not agree on every issue. Elections are about making choices and the Democratic nominee is simply not an option,” he wrote on Facebook. He does not plan to attend the convention. (May 5, 2016)

Pete Ricketts: YEA

The Nebraska governor will back Trump. That’s a bit of a surprise because Ricketts’ father, mother, and brother were among the leading bankrollers of anti-Trump initiatives. Trump threatened them in February, tweeting, “They better be careful, they have a lot to hide!” (May 5, 2016)

Mike Pence: YEA

The Indiana governor and social conservative is now Donald Trump’s running mate and the Republican vice-presidential candidate. (July 15, 2016)

Pence previously cautiously endorsed Cruz ahead of the Hoosier State primary, but he’s now on the Trump train. “I’m fully supportive of our presumptive nominee, and I do think Donald Trump will do well in the State of Indiana,” he said. (May 6, 2016)

Charlie Baker: NAY

The moderate Massachusetts governor told reporters he would not vote for Trump and doubted he’d vote for Clinton. Later the same day, a spokeswoman clarified to The Boston Globe: “Governor Baker will not be voting for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.” (May 4, 2016)

Rick Snyder: ABSTAIN

Michigan’s governor—a rising GOP star until the Flint water scandal derailed his career—will not endorse Trump, nor will he weigh in otherwise, he said. “I’ve stayed out of the whole thing, and I’m going to continue to,” he told the editorial board of The Detroit News. “I’ve got important things I want to work on in Michigan.” (June 2, 2016)

Pat McCrory: YEA

The North Carolina governor, facing a tough reelection fight in November, offered a pro-forma endorsement for Trump when pressed by a News and Observerreporter: “I’ve stated that I would support the Republican nominee. Anything else?” (June 7, 2016)

Scott Walker: YEA (was UNDECIDED)

The Wisconsin governor, a former presidential rival of Trump’s, stayed out of the race for some time. In an energetic speech at the Republican National Convention, he made the case for Trump by assailing Hillary Clinton. “America deserves better,” he said. (July 20, 2016)

Walker previously said he’d back Trump—though don’t ask him to be happy about it, or even use the candidate’s name:

 Follow Scott Walker 

✔@ScottWalker

Last August, I said I’d support the GOP nominee. It’s now clear who the RNC delegates will vote to nominate. And he is better than she is.

Walker also told WKOW that he will be speaking at the Republican National Convention. (July 6, 2016)

Walker had been fairly quiet about the race. Although he initially said he intended to back the nominee, whoever that was, he later hedged, lamenting the “poor choices” Americans face. He declined to endorse Trump, citing his comments about Judge Gonzalo Curiel. “He’s not yet the nominee. Officially that won’t happen until the middle of July, and so for me that’s kind of the timeframe,” Walker said. “In particular I want to make sure that he renounces what he says, at least in regards to this judge.” (June 8, 2016)

Larry Hogan: NAY (was ABSTAIN)

The governor of Maryland told The Washington Post he does not intend to vote for Trump. “No, I don’t plan to,” he said. “I guess when I get behind the curtain I’ll have to figure it out. Maybe write someone in. I’m not sure.” (June 15, 2016)

Hogan has repeatedly expressed his disgust with Trump and tried to deflect conversations about national politics. “My thoughts are pretty clear. I’ve talked about it ad nauseam for four or five months,” he said. “My thoughts haven’t changed. I have nothing more to add. I’m not involved in it. I don’t care to be involved in it. I’m not going to endorse anyone and would rather focus on things here in Maryland.” Hogan said he didn’t know who he’d vote for. (June 9, 2016)

Susana Martinez: NAY (was UNDECIDED)

The New Mexico governor has responded to the video of Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women with disgust. “That’s why I have withheld my support from the very beginning, and will not support him now,” she said. (October 8, 2016)

Martinez was initially mentioned as a VP candidate—not the first time, since as a woman and Hispanic she’d add a lot of diversity to a GOP ticket. But she and Trump have since waged a war of words, with Trump first applauding her, then blasting her, then saying he’d like her endorsement. Martinez has not endorsed Trump, but says she will not be backing Hillary Clinton. (June 16, 2016)

Gary Herbert: NAY (was YEA)

The Utah governor says he no longer backs Trump after the release of a tape in which he made lewd comments about women and discussed groping them without consent. Herbert tweeted that the comments were “beyond offensive & despicable. While I cannot vote for Hillary Clinton, I will not vote for Trump.” (October 8, 2016)

Although Trump’s backing in Utah has been unusually weak for a Republican, Herbert previously said he would support Trump. (August 11, 2016)

Bill Haslam: NAY (was UNDECIDED)

The governor of Tennessee issued a statement saying he would not vote for Trump and calling him to withdraw: “It is time for the good of the nation and the Republican Party for Donald Trump to step aside and let Gov. Mike Pence assume the role as the party’s nominee. If he does not step aside, I will write in a Republican for the office of President.” Haslam had not previously endorsed Trump. (October 9, 2016)

Robert Bentley: NAY (was YEA)

The Alabama governor, who has been struggling with his own sex scandal, announced he would no longer back Trump. “I endorsed Gov. John Kasich for president, because I felt like he was the most qualified and the best person to lead our nation,” he said in a statement. “I certainly won’t vote for Hillary Clinton, but I cannot and will not vote for Donald Trump.” (October 9, 2016)

Bentley previously endorsed Trump, though he had not backed him during the GOP primary. “He will be the one that I support, and I will do whatever I can to help,” he said. (May 9, 2016)

Dennis Daugaard: UNCLEAR

The South Dakota governor called on Trump to step down. “Enough is enough. Donald Trump should withdraw in favor of Governor Mike Pence. This election is too important,” he tweeted, but did not indicate whether he would vote for Trump if he did not. (October 8, 2016)

Daugaard previously joined Trump’s agricultural advisory committee.

Richard Armitage: NAY

Armitage, a former Navy officer who served as deputy secretary of state under George W. Bush and deputy secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan, says he will vote for Hillary Clinton. “If Donald Trump is the nominee, I would vote for Hillary Clinton,” he told Politico. “He doesn’t appear to be a Republican, he doesn’t appear to want to learn about issues. So, I’m going to vote for Mrs. Clinton.” (June 16, 2016)

Condoleezza Rice: NAY (was ABSTAIN)

George W. Bush’s secretary of state blasted Trump in a Facebook statement and called on him to step down: “Enough! Donald Trump should not be President. He should withdraw. As a Republican, I hope to support someone who has the dignity and stature to run for the highest office in the greatest democracy on earth.” (October 8, 2016)

Rice previously said she had no plans to get involved in the race or attend the GOP convention, a spokesman told Yahoo News. She also ruled out serving as Trump’s running mate. (June 17, 2016)

Brent Scowcroft: NAY

The retired lieutenant general and national security adviser, an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq, has announced that he is endorsing Hillary Clinton. Scowcroft did not mention Trump in his statement. (June 22, 2016)

Donald Rumsfeld: YEA

It’s now a known known: The former secretary of defense under George W. Bush is voting Trump. “I’m a Republican, and there’s not any doubt in my mind how I’ll vote,” he told the Daily Mail, adding that it was “not a close call” and “I don’t believe Hillary Clinton is qualified to be President of the United States.” (June 23, 2016)

Hank Paulson: NAY

Paulson, who served as Treasury secretary under George W. Bush and was previously CEO of Goldman Sachs, assailed Trump’s judgment and business acumen in a Washington Post column. “I will not vote for Donald Trump. I will not cast a write-in vote,” Paulson wrote. “I’ll be voting for Hillary Clinton, with the hope that she can bring Americans together to do the things necessary to strengthen our economy, our environment and our place in the world. To my Republican friends: I know I’m not alone.” (June 24, 2016)

Michael Chertoff: NAY

The former secretary of homeland security under George W. Bush signed a letter from GOP national-security figures saying they could not support Trump. (August 8, 2016)

Michael Hayden: NAY

A retired four-star general who led the CIA and NSA, Hayden signed a letter from GOP national-security figures saying they could not support Trump. (On August 5, former acting CIA Director Michael Morrell, who has identified as an independent, wrote in The New York Times that he backed Clinton over Trump.) (August 8, 2016)

John Negroponte: NAY

The retired diplomat, who served as director of national intelligence, ambassador to Iraq, and UN ambassador under George W. Bush, has announced that he will vote for Hillary Clinton. (August 10, 2016)

Negroponte had already signed a letter from GOP national-security figures saying they could not support Trump. (August 8, 2016)

Tom Ridge: NAY

The former Pennsylvania governor and first-ever secretary of homeland security, who served under George W. Bush, signed a letter from GOP national-security figures saying they could not support Trump. (August 8, 2016)

Ridge had previously ruled out voting for Trump. There’s “not a chance” Ridge would support Trump if he was the nominee, he told Chuck Todd. (December 8, 2015)

William Ruckelshaus: NAY

The first administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, who served under Richard Nixon and is center-left on environmental issues by today’s standards, issued a statement endorsing Hillary Clinton. (August 9, 2016)

William Reilly: NAY

Reilly, who was EPA administrator during the George H.W. Bush administration, also endorsed Clinton in a statement. (August 9, 2016)

Carlos Gutierrez: NAY

A businessman who served as commerce secretary of George W. Bush from 2005 to 2009, Gutierrez has joined a group of Republicans endorsing Hillary Clinton. (August 10, 2016)

George P. Shultz: NAY

Shultz, who served as secretary of state under Ronald Reagan and as secretary of both labor and the Treasury under Richard Nixon, indicated at a media roundtable at Sanford’s conservative Hoover Institution that he does not back Trump. “God help us,” he said of a Trump presidency. (August 16, 2016)

Paul Wolfowitz: NAY

Wolfowitz, the neoconservative leading light who served as deputy secretary of defense in the George W. Bush administration and later as president of the World Bank, tells Der Spiegel he will not vote for Trump and will likely vote for Hillary Clinton. He called Trump a security risk to the United States and said, “The only way you can be comfortable about Trump’s foreign policy, is to think he doesn’t really mean anything he says.” (August 26, 2016)

Charles Fried: NAY

Fried, a Harvard Law School professor who served as solicitor general under Ronald Reagan, writes in a column for CNN that Trump must be stopped, contrasting him with the Gipper. “You lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. And these fleas carry the disease of virulent hatred and discord,” Fried argues. (Several recent policy stands have distanced Fried from conservatives.) (August 30, 2016)

Louis Wade Sullivan: NAY

Sullivan, who served as secretary of health and human services under President George H.W. Bush, is backing Clinton. “Though my enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton is somewhat tempered, I certainly believe she is an infinitely better choice for president than Donald Trump,” he told The Huffington Post. (September 8, 2016)

Robert Zoellick: NAY

Zoellick, who served both Presidents Bush, including as U.S. trade representative and deputy secretary of state under George W. Bush, and is a former president of the World Bank, is not backing Trump. “I’ve seen the presidency up close. Trump is a dangerous man. I would not want that man with his finger on the triggers,” he told former Jeb Bush strategist Mike Murphy. (September 12, 2016)

Robert Gates: NAY

Gates, who served as secretary of defense and director of the CIA under President George W. Bush, and continued to lead the Pentagon under President Obama, writes in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that Trump is “beyond repair … unqualified and unfit to be commander-in-chief.” (September 16, 2016)

Donald Gregg: NAY

Gregg, who was Vice President George H.W. Bush’s national security adviser and then served as ambassador to South Korea once Bush ascended to the presidency, has endorsed Hillary Clinton. “We now have a person at the top of the Republican ticket who I believe is dangerous, doesn’t understand the complex world we live in, doesn’t care to, and is without any moral or international philosophy,” he Gregg said in a statement. (September 25, 2016)

Ed Meese: YEA

Meese, who served as attorney general during the Ronald Reagan administration, is the co-chair of a group of the Reagan Alumni Advisory Council for Trump-Pence, the campaign announced. (October 29, 2016)

Meese was critical of Trump during the primary, but Politico reports he has now joined the Trump transition team. Meese declined to comment. (September 27, 2016)

Michael Chertoff: NAY

The former secretary of homeland security, under George W. Bush, and federal judge, has announced he is endorsing Hillary Clinton. Although Clinton has courted GOP national-security figures, it’s a remarkable alliance: He was lead counsel on the original Whitewater investigation, while she in turn cast the lone no vote against his judicial nomination. Chertoff said Trump has been “making enemies of your friends and cozying up to your adversaries.” (October 3, 2016)

Colin Powell: NAY

The former secretary of state and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was once mentioned as a GOP candidate for president, will reportedly back Hillary Clinton in 2016. Speaking to the Long Island Association, Powell said that Trump is “selling people a bill of goods.” (October 25, 2016)

Frank Keating: YEA

Keating, who served two terms as governor of Oklahoma and was associate attorney general before that, has been named a co-chair of the Reagan Alumni Advisory Council for Trump-Pence, the campaign announced. (October 29, 2016)

Bill Kristol: SOFT NAY

The editor of The Weekly Standard threw his lot in with the #NeverTrump crowd with gusto, and he’s been a leading advocate for a third-party alternative. But these days, he seems a bit confused about what exactly the word “never” means: “I mean, I guess never say never. On the one hand, I’ll say #NeverTrump, and on the other hand, I’ll say never say never. I’ll leave it ambiguous.” (May 2, 2016)

Ross Douthat: NAY

After spending the primary alternately criticizing Trump and forecasting his doom, the New York Times columnist seems especially dyspeptic and despairing. (May 5, 2016)

Erick Erickson: NAY

The radio host, editor of The Resurgent, and former RedState editor writes: “Hillary Clinton is unfit for the Presidency, but so is Donald Trump. Some Republicans may decide it is time to be a team player, but I will put my country before my party and decline to help the voters in this country commit national suicide.” (May 4, 2016)

Leon Wolf: NAY

Wolf, the editor of RedState, has been a prominent Trump critic. He says he’s leaning toward voting for a Libertarian candidate. “I genuinely believe that Hillary Clinton would be a better President than Trump, and it’s not close,” he wrote. “That said, Hillary would also be a terrible President, there’s no doubt about that.” He also called on Senate Republicans to confirm Merrick Garland, President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, lest Trump do the choosing instead. (May 4, 2016)

Ann Coulter: YEA

Coulter has been a fanatical backer of Trump for months.

George Will: NAY

The dean of conservative columnists has left the Republican Party over Trump’s nomination, saying, “This is not my party.” (June 26, 2016)

Will detests Trump, and had previously called for Republicans to defeat him if he is their nominee: “Were he to be nominated, conservatives would have two tasks. One would be to help him lose 50 states—condign punishment for his comprehensive disdain for conservative essentials, including the manners and grace that should lubricate the nation’s civic life.” (April 29, 2016)

Charles Krauthammer: SOFT NAY

The leading writer has been very critical of Trump, but in an interview with Bill O’Reilly, he left the door ajar to change his mind. “Let me just say from what I’ve seen up until now, heard from Trump and watched him, I don’t think I’d be capable of voting for Donald Trump,” he said. “Question is, what do I do? I don’t know yet.” (May 3, 2016)

Bill O’Reilly: APPARENT YEA

Without officially stating his support, the Fox News personality has repeatedlydefended Trump. (May 5, 2016)

Sean Hannity: YEA

Hannity has been one of Trump’s two most reliable cheerleaders in the media. “I’ll be voting for Donald Trump in November,” he said. (May 31, 2016)

Matt Drudge: YEA

The publisher of the Drudge Report has been, along with Hannity, Trump’s best friend in the press.

Sarah Palin: YEA

The former Alaska governor and vice-presidential candidate endorsed Trump with a Dadaist address to Iowans in January, and she’s stumped for him since.

The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board: SOFT YEA

The editors of the nation’s most powerful conservative editorial board are not fans of Trump’s, but they are resigned. “Mr. Trump wasn’t our first choice, or even the 15th, but the reality is that more GOP voters preferred him to the alternatives,” they wrote. “Yet GOP voters made the ultimate decision, and that deserves some respect unless we’re going to give up on democracy.” The board also criticized the move for a thirty-party candidate, irking Bill Kristol.

Joe Scarborough: UNDECIDED (was SOFT YEA)

The MSNBC host and token network conservative was among the friendliest voices in the media toward Trump during the Republican primary. He has been more critical since then. Referring to Trump’s attacks on Judge Gonzalo Curiel, he announced to Republicans, “You have to start calling him out and saying you’ll retract your endorsement of him today or else the United States Senate is in danger.” A day before, he compared Trump’s remarks to the Nazi Nuremberg race laws. (June 7, 2016)

Scarborough previously announced was not sure whether he can vote for Trump, citing Trump sticking to outlandish promises like a ban on Muslim immigration that he made during the primary. (May 5, 2016)

Rush Limbaugh: SOFT YEA

The leading right-wing talk-show host has been a booster of Trump all along—to the agitation of Trump-opposing conservatives—despite occasionally criticizing him. After Trump’s Indiana win, Limbaugh predicted: “My instinctive feeling right now is that Trump is gonna win, beat Hillary badly, that it could be landslide proportions.” He has declined to formally endorse Trump, though. (May 23, 2016)

Glenn Beck: NAY

Beck, the talker who was a Cruz backer, has remained steadfastly opposed to Trump since he became the presumptive nominee. In a recent Facebook post, he said, “If the consequence of standing against Trump and for principles is indeed the election of Hillary Clinton, so be it. At least it is a moral, ethical choice.” But he added that he was neither endorsing nor voting for the Democrat. (October 11, 2016)

Beck previously said Trump cannot win. “I don’t want my children to look at that man and say, ‘Yeah, he’s my President.’ I won’t have that. I will not endorse it, I will not tolerate it,” he said. (May 4, 2016)

Rupert Murdoch: YEA

The hugely influential conservative mogul—owner of The Wall Street Journal, Fox News, and the New York Post—suggested in March that the Republican Party coalesce around Trump:

 Follow Rupert Murdoch 

✔@rupertmurdoch

As predicted, Trump reaching out to make peace with Republican “establishment”. If he becomes inevitable party would be mad not to unify.

The coverage of Trump late in the primary led Ted Cruz to lash out and accuse Murdoch & Co. of aiding Trump.

Max Boot: NAY

Boot, a leading neoconservative and military historian, says that although he’s a lifelong Republican, the party is dead and he won’t vote for Trump: “The risk of Trump winning, however remote, represents the biggest national security threat that the United States faces today.” While “Clinton would be far preferable to Trump,” Boot says that right now “I only know one thing for sure: I won’t vote for Trump.” (June 3, 2016)

Michael Reagan: Apparent NAY (was YEA and previously NAY)

The son of former President Ronald Reagan, an influential talk-radio host and writer, angrily denounced Trump for implying without evidence that Hillary Clinton had been unfaithful to Bill Clinton. “No way do I or would my father support this garbage,” he tweeted. “If this is where he is going I cannot follow him.” (October 3, 2016)

Reagan previously said he would back Trump in order to stop Hillary Clinton. (July 28, 2016)

Reagan previously said he would not vote for Trump in the California primary and added, “This most likely would be the 1st time if my father was alive that he would not support the nominee of the GOP.” (June 6, 2016)

Hugh Hewitt: YEA (was SOFT YEA and previously NAY)

In the wake of a video in which Trump boasts about sexually assaulting women, Hewitt has called on the nominee to step down. “For the benefit of the country, the party, his family, and himself, I think that he should withdraw,” Hewitt said. “I don’t think Donald Trump can win.” Hewitt, who has gone back and forth on Trump, did not say whether he would continue to back the nominee if he did not withdraw. (October 8, 2016)

Having appeared to waver earlier, the talk-radio host, who helped moderate several of the Republican primary debates and was critical of Trump, writes, “Of course I am voting for Donald Trump. You should be too if you are a conservative.” (July 31, 2016)

Hewitt softened on Trump in the aftermath of the Orlando attack, writing in a Washington Post column that his focus on security shows that he’s potentially preferable to Hillary Clinton. (June 15, 2016)

Hewitt had taken an unusually hard line against Trump, not only declining to support him but, in the wake of Trump’s comments about Judge Gonzalo Curiel, actually calling for the Republican National Convention to jettison Trump as nominee. (June 8, 2016)

Robert Kagan: NAY

Kagan, a leading neoconservative historian and writer, was among the first conservatives to back Clinton, writing way back in February, “For this former Republican, and perhaps for others, the only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton. The party cannot be saved, but the country still can be.” He later wroteof Trump, “This is how fascism comes to America.” (February 25, 2016)

Bret Stephens: NAY

The deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, says he will not vote for Trump, but will probably not vote for Clinton. “Probably none of the above,” he told Hugh Hewitt. “I will never vote for Donald Trump. I have a very, very hard time voting for Mrs. Clinton.” But Stephens added: “I think that for the United States, Hillary Clinton, as awful as I find her, is a survivable event. I’m not so sure about Donald Trump.” (June 17, 2016)

Greg Mankiw: NAY

Mankiw, an economist at Harvard who chaired George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers and Mitt Romney and other Republicans, tells John Harwood he cannot support Trump.

 Follow John Harwood 

✔@JohnJHarwood

GOP economist Mankiw on Trump: “He won’t be getting my vote. I have R friends who think couldn’t be worse than Obama/Clinton. They’re wrong”

Lanhee Chen: NAY

The conservative policy wonk, who served as Mitt Romney’s policy director in 2012 and worked with Marco Rubio in 2016, does not back Trump. “I would rather not see him win,” he said at a media roundtable at Sanford’s conservative Hoover Institution. (August 16, 2016)

Stephen Moore: YEA

Moore, a former Wall Street Journal editorial columnist and current chief economist at the Heritage Foundation, is one of Trump’s economic advisers. (August 5, 2016)

Ed Feulner: YEA

Feulner, who as longtime head of the Heritage Foundation turned it into a conservative powerhouse, has joined Trump’s transition team, Yahoo reports. “Feulner, 75, is the first major figure with deep credibility in the conservative movement to join the Trump transition effort,” writes Jon Ward. (August 24, 2016)

Mark Levin: YEA (was NAY)

The talk-radio host has changed his mind, saying he will support the GOP nominee. “I’m gonna vote for Donald Trump. I’m gonna wind up voting for Donald Trump on Election Day,” he said. “I take no responsibility for the dumb things he says or the dumb things his surrogates say.” (September 7, 2016)

Levin had unequivocally ruled out supporting Trump. “As a result of what the Trump supporters have attempted here, particularly Roger Stone, I am not voting for Donald Trump. Period,” he said in April. “So, count me as never Trump.”

Dennis Prager: YEA (was NAY)

The conservative writer and radio host says he backs Trump because Hillary Clinton in worse. “We have the same principles as the Never Trumpers — especially those of us who strongly opposed nominating Trump; that’s why we opposed him, after all,” he writes. “So where do we differ? We differ on this: We hold that defeating Hillary Clinton, the Democrats, and the Left is also a principle. And that it is the greater principle.” (September 6, 2016)

As my colleague Conor Friedersdorf points out, Prager has previously been highly critical of Trump and his behavior, and in 2011 deemed him “disqualified” from the presidency due to his profanity.

Norman Podhoretz: YEA

Podhoretz, the eminent neo-conservative and longtime editor of Commentary, is among the few neocons to throw his weight behind Trump. “Many of the younger—they’re not so young anymore—neoconservatives have gone over to the Never Trump movement,” he told The Times of Israel. “But I describe myself as anti-anti-Trump. While I have no great admiration for him, to put it mildly, I think she’s worse. Between the two, he’s the lesser evil.” (September 8, 2016)

John Podhoretz: NAY

Among those younger neocons with whom Norman Podhoretz has parted on Trump? His son John, the current editor of Commentary. In May, he wrote in that magazine that he couldn’t support either nominee: “Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are both devils we know. And because the GOP has become unfit, we will not be able to avoid the choice between them, except by literal avoidance—by staying home. Many, many millions of us will surely do so.”

Michael Medved: NAY

The conservative radio host was an early never-Trump supporter, and continues to criticize him. “Since I never supported #Trump in any way, I’m proud to be one nationally syndicated radio host who WON”T need to reconsider or apologize.,” he tweeted. (October 8, 2016)

John Yoo: NAY

Yoo, a Berkeley law professor who infamously wrote the Bush-era “Torture Memos,” says that Trump “reminds me a lot of early Mussolini .… very disturbingly similar.” (October 12, 2016)

Yoo previously argued that the prospect of Supreme Court appointments does not justify supporting Trump. “No one should rely on his vague promises. He has already flip-flopped on numerous core issues, such as the minimum wage, tax rates and entitlement reform,” he wrote. (August 16, 2016)

Ari Fleischer: NAY (was YEA)

The former White House press secretary under George W. Bush says he will note vote for Trump. “If my ballot contained a box for whom I was voting against, my choice would be easy,” he writes in a Washington Post column. “Never Clinton. But voting means deciding whom to vote for.I will vote for Republicans up and down the ballot. But when it comes to the presidency, I’m going to leave my ballot blank.” (November 6, 2016)

Fleischer previously said he would hold his nose and vote for Trump, and joined a coalition of Bush administration veterans backing the Republican nominee. (September 27, 2016)

 

Donors

Sheldon Adelson: YEA

Although he has not withdrawn his support for Donald Trump, the Vegas-based megadonor and major advocate for Israel appears to have decided to concentrate his donations in congressional races rather than using them to sway the presidential race, The New York Times reports. (September 20, 2016)

Adelson may have been perturbed by Trump’s statements about the Jewish state during the campaign, but he told The New York Times he’s supporting him. “Yes, I’m a Republican, he’s a Republican,” he said. “He’s our nominee. Whoever the nominee would turn out to be, any one of the 17—he was one of the 17. He won fair and square.” (May 5, 2016)

Paul Singer: NAY

The major Republican donor, who backed Marco Rubio and contributed to anti-Trump efforts, will not back Trump but also won’t vote for Clinton. Singer jokedhe might write himself in. (June 29, 2016)

NBC News previously reported that Singer would not back Trump. Bloomberg reported he’ll stay out of the presidential race. (May 5, 2016)

Joe and Marlene Ricketts: YEA (was UNDECIDED)

The billionaire couple will give at least $1 million to a super PAC working to elect Donald Trump, The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post report. (September 20, 2016)

The Ricketts spent at least $5.5 million on anti-Trump efforts during the primary, and Trump at one point threatened them, tweeting, “They better be careful, they have a lot to hide!” They have not made their stance public, though their son Pete, the governor of Nebraska, has endorsed Trump.

Charles and David Koch: SOFT NAY

Prior to Trump’s becoming the presumptive GOP nominee, Charles Koch said he thought Hillary Clinton might be a better president than Trump, though he made no indication that the famed pair of brothers would back her. They now say they are not backing Trump, though a spokesman did not rule it out entirely. (May 5, 2016)

Peter Thiel: YEA

Thiel, the PayPal founder and well-known venture capitalist, is known as a libertarian—though Rand Paul tried and failed to court him as a major backer. (Thiel ended up donating to former Silicon Valley denizen Carly Fiorina.) Thiel has signed up as a prospective Trump delegate from California. (May 10, 2016)

Stanley Hubbard: YEA

Hubbard, a longtime Republican donor, gave thousands to the Stop Trump effort earlier this spring. Now he says he’ll back Trump. “All of my favorite candidates dropped out one by one,” he told Politico. “We’re down to my least favorite candidate. And my least favorite candidate is better than Hillary Clinton in terms of what’s best for the country.” (May 10, 2016)

T. Boone Pickens: YEA

The Oklahoma oil billionaire—and recent renewable-energy fanatic—is a former Jeb Bush backer, but Pickens now supports Trump, citing his support for Trump’s ban on Muslim immigration. “Yes, I’m for Donald Trump … I’m tired of having politicians as president of the U.S.,” he told The Wall Street Journal. He will host a fundraiser for a pro-Trump super PAC. (May 12, 2016)

Foster Friess: YEA

The former Rick Santorum bankroller has decided to back Trump, telling The Hillthat Trump can’t be judged either by his past stances and behaviors or by what he does and says now. “My success came from harnessing people’s strengths and ignoring their weaknesses,” he said. “And also, from assessing people not according to their pasts or where they are today, but rather based on what they can become.” (May 23, 2016)

Woody Johnson: YEA

The New York Jets owner was a major donor to Mitt Romney in 2012 and to Jeb Bush’s Right to Rise super PAC—as well as for John McCain and George W. Bush. He met with Trump on May 23 and will reportedly donate and help bundledonations for Trump. (May 24, 2016)

Mel Sembler: YEA

Sembler is a major fundraiser and a longtime political ally of the Bush family, having served as an ambassador under both Presidents Bush. Naturally, he supported Jeb Bush’s presidential run. After Jeb Bush dropped out of the race, he said, “Times have changed, the country has changed, the electorate has changed. I don’t understand our country any more.” Understand it or not, he’s decided to go along, and has signed on as a vice chairman of the Trump fundraising effort. (May 24, 2016)

Meg Whitman: NAY

The CEO of HP, who ran for California governor in 2010, says she will vote for Hillary Clinton, calling Trump a “dishonest demagogue” who has “undermined the character of the nation.” “I will vote for Hillary, I will talk to my Republican friends about helping her, and I will donate to her campaign and try to raise money for her,” she told The New York Times. Whitman’s announcement isn’t a total surprise—she suggested at a Romney-hosted confab in June she might back Clinton—but is striking, since she was finance chair for a Republican presidential candidate, Chris Christie, this year. (August 3, 2016)

Seth Klarman: NAY

A billionaire financier and hedge-fund honcho, Klarman is an independent who has mostly given to Republicans, including Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, and Jeb Bush. He’s now working to elect Clinton, calling a Trump presidency “unthinkable.” (August 4, 2016)

Mike Fernandez: NAY

Fernandez, a Cuban emigre and health-care executive, is a major Republican donor in Florida, having given heavily to efforts to elect Mitt Romney in 2012 and Governor Rick Scott in 2014. He also backed Jeb Bush in 2016, but he strongly opposes Trump, who he compared to Hitler, Perón, and Mussolini. “My fellow Republicans, swallow hard, look into your heart — and your gut. Vote for Hillary Clinton and then every single Republican on the ticket,” he wrote in a Miami Herald column. “Do that, and rest assured that you will have served your country well.” (September 1, 2016)

Faith Leaders

Jerry Falwell Jr.: YEA

Falwell, president of Liberty University and son of the iconic Moral Majority leader, has been one of Trump’s staunchest backers.

Russell Moore: NAY

Moore, who is president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, says he will not vote for either Trump or Clinton but will write in Ben Sasse. (May 5, 2016)

Ralph Reed: YEA

The conservative activist and former executive director of the Christian Coalition has joined Trump’s evangelical advisory board. “I believe that, should Donald Trump be elected, he will disrupt the broken system in Washington, D.C., in a way that Hillary Clinton won’t,” he told NPR. “And I think that message is likely to resonate … very powerfully in the faith community.” (June 21, 2016)

James Dobson: YEA

The former president of Focus on the Family is a member of Trump’s evangelical advisory board, although he previously said he was “very wary of Donald Trump.” (June 21, 2016)

Richard Land: YEA

Land, who preceded Russell Moore as president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, has taken a different tack from his successor on Trump, joining Trump’s evangelical advisory board. (June 21, 2016)

Robert P. George: NAY

George, a conservative Catholic thinker and professor of law at Princeton who is highly influential in social conservative circles, has written that “Donald Trump is manifestly unfit to be president of the United States. George is not supporting Clinton.

Wayne Grudem: NAY (was YEA)

The evangelical theologian has withdrawn his support for Trump after the publication of a video in which Trump brags about sexually assaulting women. “There is no morally good presidential candidate in this election,” he writes. “I previously called Donald Trump a ‘good candidate with flaws’ and a ‘flawed candidate’ but I now regret that I did not more strongly condemn his moral character. I cannot commend Trump’s moral character, and I strongly urge him to withdraw from the election.” (October 9, 2016)

Grudem previously argued that voting for Trump was “a morally good choice.” (July 28, 2016)

Republicans Vote

Donald Trump’s idea of what “American” means is itself un-American

From his Muslim ban to his attacks on the “Mexican” judge, Trump assumes you can’t be loyal to America and to your immigrant heritage. 

Donald Trump believes the best way to prevent the mass shooting in Orlando is to go back in time and block shooter Omar Mateen’s parents from coming to the United States.

“The bottom line,” Trump said in a major speech on Monday, “is that the only reason the killer was in America in the first place was because we allowed his family to come here.”

This was all, Trump continued, that could have been expected — once Muslim immigrants are admitted into the US, their descendants will inevitably become terrorists. Under President Hillary Clinton, he said, “you’d be admitting hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Middle East with no system to vet them, or to prevent the radicalization of their children.”

“Or their children’s children,” he added, in an apparent ad lib.

Trump has called repeatedly to ban Muslim immigration to the United States. As his policy speech Monday in response to the Orlando shooting made clear, he sees the ban as his cardinal foreign policy proposal.

But he’s not being honest about it. Donald Trump has shown, time and time again, that he doesn’t believe the descendants of immigrants — whether they come from the Muslim world or from Mexico — are necessarily Americans.

At best, he needs them to prove their loyalty. At worst, he sees non-European immigrant heritage and Americanness as a zero-sum identity game — someone with the former can never truly claim the other.

For more than 200 years, “American” has been about something more than blood and surname. By accusing second-generation Americans of being un-American, Donald Trump, the son of an immigrant mother, is engaging in a little second-generation un-Americanness himself.

Trump consistently treats some Americans as not fully American

An instructive counterpoint: Here is what Donald Trump said during an interview about a mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in October, conducted by Christopher Harper-Mercer, a US citizen whose parents weren’t immigrants (emphasis added):

People are going to slip through the cracks […] oftentimes this happens and the neighborhood’s just, you know, we sort of saw that about him, it really looked like he could be a problem but it’s often hard to put someone in an institution for the rest of their lives based on the fact that he looks like he could be a problem.

The contrast couldn’t be clearer. Some people get the benefit of the doubt: The suspicions of their neighbors aren’t enough to punish them for something they haven’t yet done (and may never do). Other people don’t. The fact of their heritage not only puts them under suspicion of radicalization but makes them such a threat to the American homeland that it’s worth banning their parents from the US just to prevent them from being born here.

The difference between the two groups isn’t whether they’re American. Both Omar Mateen and Christopher Harper-Mercer were American in the eyes of the law. But in the eyes of Donald Trump — who said Monday that he wanted to be the president of “all Americans,” even as he harped on the dangers of second-generation Americans — Mateen simply doesn’t count as American because of who his parents were.

“He was born an Afghan of Afghan parents who immigrated to the United States,” Trump said during his Monday speech (in another apparent ad lib).

We’ve seen this distinction before. Gonzalo Curiel is a federal judge. Before being appointed to the federal bench, he was a distinguished prosecutor. Curiel is a second-generation American. He was born in Indiana; his parents were born in Mexico.

Shortly before the Orlando attack, Donald Trump spent more than a week saying that Curiel couldn’t be objective toward Trump in a class-action suit because Trump wanted to build a wall with Mexico — implying, in a not-even-veiled way, that Curiel would put Mexico’s interests in front of America’s.

Trump and his supporters pointed to Curiel’s membership in a Latino lawyers association, calling it a “radical” Latino organization. So Curiel, too, in his way, was accused of being a member of the radicalized second generation.

Literally all of American history has been about immigrants becoming American

The equality of all citizens is the cornerstone of American law. It is certainly the cornerstone of American immigration policy.

Not all people in the US have the same rights. Legal immigrants, even permanent residents, don’t have the full rights of citizens — they can be deported for committing a crime (and thousands of them are). Once an immigrant is naturalized as a US citizen, that stops. Citizens who commit crimes are punished by the US legal system; they’re not sent out of the country — no matter where they’re from.

Any child born on US soil to parents living in the US is a citizen upon birth. (Even the Republicans who have floated restrictions on birthright citizenship haven’t gone so far as to withhold birthright citizenship to the children of US citizens, even if the parents weren’t born here.)

This is fundamental to how Americans understand their country. Most Americans (certainly most white Americans) believe in the idea of their country as a “nation of immigrants”: the place where generations of people came from other countries to build a better life for themselves and their families, where the heritages of the “old country” were quietly subsumed by a broader American identity. America is where you go to become an American; if you want to become an American, the doors are (in theory) open to you.

Because the debate over immigration to the US (prior to the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump) focused on unauthorized immigrants, it’s often been characterized as a debate over the “rule of law.” (As a matter of fact, one of the most common lines heard among opponents of legalizing unauthorized immigrants is, “My ancestors came here the right way” — an acknowledgment that someone can become American from immigrant stock.)

Trump has blown the cover off that, by impugning the Americanness of legal immigrants and American citizens just as much as he’s attacked unauthorized ones. He’s shown that many Americans are anxious, more than anything, about the threat immigrants pose to their values.

These Americans suspect there are some cultures that cannot simply be subsumed into American culture — that are completely inimical to Americanness. Immigrants from these cultures can’t be expected (or shouldn’t be trusted) to choose American values over the values of their home countries. If allowed to take root in American communities, they will simply promote pockets of separatism — cultural “no-go zones.” And if their home countries come into conflict with America, they — and their children, and their children’s children — will choose heritage over patriotism.

The fear of a fifth column is nothing new, either: For as long as Americans have held up the ideal of the integrated or assimilated immigrant, they’ve been afraid that some immigrants are simply occupying America without joining it. These fears gave us anti-Catholic discrimination and riots in the 19th century. In the early 20th century, it gave us surveillance of German-American communities — and forced 120,000 Japanese Americans, many of them US citizens, into concentration camps.

Radicalization is a problem. Isolation helps feed it.

Second-generation radicalization of Muslim immigrants is a problem, both in the US and in many European countries. A federal court in Minneapolis is currently hearing the case of three Somali-American teenagers accused of having become radicalized by ISIS. Many other young men (some of whom immigrated at a young age themselves, others of whom are second-generation Americans) have been brought up on similar charges.

The question of how to prevent second-generation Americans (or Belgians, or Brits) from becoming radicalized is a tough one. It’s something that many people — specifically, Muslim community leaders — in both the US and Europe are working on. There aren’t good answers yet. Nor are there easy answers for how people become radicalized.

The evidence is suggestive, however, that one of the factors that makes young people most vulnerable to recruitment by radicals is social isolation. In particular, when young people feel disconnected from both the culture of their heritage and the culture of their countries, they are more likely to find a home in a radical ideology instead. One 2013 study of Dutch Muslims found that “a feeling of being disconnected from society” was an “important determinant of a radical belief system.”

It’s nowhere near as simple as “if Americans don’t embrace second-generation immigrants, they’ll get radicalized.” These are just factors in a larger matrix. But discriminating against second-generation young people on the basis of their heritage is certainly correlated with social isolation and radicalization.

More broadly, when second-generation young people feel that their identity is a zero-sum game — that the heritage of their parents is in conflict with the heritage of the country in which they live — they’re more likely to turn to radicalism to resolve the conflict.

A 2013 study of Turkish (Muslim) and Russian immigrants in Germany found that the more religious the immigrants were (or, in the case of Russian immigrants, the more attuned to ethnic identity), the less likely they were to be sympathetic to radical action. But when immigrants felt they would have to give up their Turkish or Russian identities in order to become German, they were more likely to nurture radical sympathies.

Identity doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game. Just look at Judge Curiel — who’s spent the bulk of his career working for the American government while remaining active in a group that celebrates his Latino heritage. Most studies of immigrant integration suggest that the most successful children of immigrants are those who manage to retain connections to both the heritage of their parents and the culture of the country in which they live.

But to Donald Trump (and many of his supporters), Curiel’s “pride” in his Mexican heritage was a threat of greater loyalty. The only way an immigrant — or the child of an immigrant, etc. — can prove she is truly American is to reject the identity of her ancestry.

Short of that, second-generation Americans are all equally deserving of scrutiny — they’re all, to some extent, impostor Americans, whose enemy loyalties will eventually come to the fore.

When you regard Gonzalo Curiel and Omar Mateen with exactly the same degree of suspicion, you give second-generation immigrants very few reasons to aspire to be Gonzalo Curiel. You give second-generation immigrants just one more reason to suspect that maybe the Omar Mateens of the world have it right after all.

It’s a pinched, insecure, petty way of looking at America. It’s what you might get if you looked at America and saw only a reflection of Donald J. Trump.

http://www.vox.com

Here is what we know about Donald Trump. Here is why he shouldn’t be president.

Donald Trump’s candidacy is the first time American politics has left me truly afraid

Updated by Ezra Klein@ezraklein  Nov 8, 2016, 8:20am EST

Donald Trump has a path to become the next president of the United States on Tuesday.

Donald Trump is not a man who should be president. This is not an ideological judgment. This is not something I would say about Mitt Romney or Marco Rubio. This is not a disagreement over Trump’s tax plan or his climate policies. This is about Trump’s character, his temperament, his impulsiveness, his basic decency.

Back in February, I wrote that Trump is the most dangerous major candidate for president in memory. I said he pairs terrible ideas with an alarming temperament; that he’s a racist, a sexist, and a demagogue, but also a narcissist, a bully, and a dilettante. That he lies so constantly and so fluently that it’s hard to know if he even realizes he’s lying. That he delights in schoolyard taunts and luxuriates in backlash.

He has had plenty of time to prove me, and everyone else, wrong. When Trump accepted the Republican nomination in July, I noted that he had not become more responsible or more sober, more decent or more generous, more considerate or more informed, more careful or more kind. Instead, he had continued to retweet white supremacists, make racist comments, pick unnecessary fights, contradict himself on the stump, show an almost gleeful disinterest in building a real campaign or learning about policy, and invoke a nightmarish American hellscape that doesn’t actually exist.

It’s been nearly four months since the Republican convention ended. Since then, we have had more than 100 days of Trump on the campaign trail to envision what the first 100 days of Trump in the White House would look like.

And it looks worse than ever.

Here is what we know — truly know — about Trump. Here is why he should not be president.

Trump is a bigot. Donald Trump kicked off his campaign calling Mexican immigrants murderers and rapists. He responded to Ted Cruz’s surge in Iowa by calling for a ban on Muslim travel. He sought to discredit a US-born judge by saying his rulings were suspect because of his “Mexican heritage.” Trump’s campaign is certainly the first time in my memory that a sitting speaker of the House has had to describe something his party’s nominee said as “the textbook definition of a racist comment.”

Since the convention, Trump’s bigoted rhetoric and actions have only intensified. He attacked Khizr Khan, the bereaved father of the late Army Captain Humayun Khan, by falsely accusing him of silencing his wife.

Reporters have uncovered more evidence of racism throughout Trump’s career as the campaign has progressed. In August, the New York Times published an extensive accounting of how Trump’s company racially discriminated against African-American tenants in the 1970s and ’80s. (That was on top of claims that Trump criticized a black accountant by lamenting, “Laziness is a trait in blacks”; that he fired black card dealers at his casinos; and that he publicly pitched The Apprentice: White People vs. Black People. Vox’s Dara Lind has an accounting of Trump’s history of bigotry here.)

This week, Trump released an ad condemned by the Anti-Defamation League as invoking anti-Semitic stereotypes and tropes. He has equated “inner cities” with African Americans on the campaign trail. He refused to apologize for calling for the executions of the Central Park Five, a group of black men wrongfully charged with murder and later exonerated by DNA testing.

This is, to put it mildly, not a man who should be put in charge of an increasingly diverse country that needs to find allies in an increasingly diverse world.

Trump is a sexist and alleged sexual predator. Stories of Trump’s casual sexism abound, but during the campaign, it was women who questioned him who felt the full force of his misogyny. The first Republican debate, for instance, was hosted by Fox News and moderated by Megyn Kelly, Bret Baier, and Chris Wallace. Kelly wasn’t obviously tougher on Trump than her colleagues, but she was the antagonist he focused on, retweeting a follower who said she was “a bimbo” and saying she had “blood coming out of her … wherever.”

After Carly Fiorina challenged him in a debate, Trump said to Rolling Stone, “Look at that face. Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?” After Hillary Clinton needed to take a bathroom break during a debate, Trump told the crowd, “It’s too disgusting. Don’t say it, it’s disgusting.”

All of this, though, was mere prelude.

First, we got the Access Hollywood tape in which Trump boasted that he liked to “grab ’em by the pussy” and claimed that “when you’re a star, they let you do it.” After he denied had ever committed sexual assault at the first presidential debate, a flood of women came out to contradict him.

Two women told the New York Times that Trump had groped them or kissed them against their will. A third woman told the Palm Beach Post that Trump had grabbed her. A writer for People magazine said Trump grabbed her and kissed her while she was interviewing him for a story related to his first year of marriage with his wife, Melania Trump.

Another woman came forward to say Trump kissed her without her permission and later offered her money for sex. Yet another claimed Trump grabbed her breasts the first time they met. (Vox’s Emily Crockett and Libby Nelson have a complete roundup here.)

By the end of the month, 16 different women had accused Trump of sexual assault.

Trump is vindictive. Trump didn’t like the Washington Post’s coverage of his campaign, so he barred its reporters from his rallies and threatened to use the power of the presidency to bring an antitrust suit against the Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos.

He was upset that Ohio didn’t vote for him, so he sat its delegation in the cheap seats, even though the state is hosting the convention. He was angry about an interview his ex-ghostwriter gave to the New Yorker, so he sent his lawyers after him. He hates the protesters who interrupt his campaigns, so he said he would look into paying the legal feesof a supporter who sucker-punched one of them.

Trump has since then lashed out at moderators, journalists, and pollsters for perceived sleights. He vowed retribution against the women who have accused him of sexual assault. He berated Paul Ryan and other leading Republicans for their “disloyal” actions.

Most stunningly, in the presidential debate Trump promised to jail Hillary Clinton over her private email server if he is elected president. (“Special prosecutor, here we come, right? If I win, we’re going to appoint a special prosecutor,” he said at a Pittsburgh rally the next day, just to clear up any confusion.) Doing so betrayed a fundamental norm of American democracy, but it also revealed the depths of Trump’s thin-skinned callowness and deep-seated desire to exact revenge.

Imagine Donald Trump with the powers of the presidency. Imagine what he could do — what he has already promised to do — to those who crossed him.

Trump is a liar. Trump boasts constantly that he had the judgment and foresight to oppose the Iraq War. But he didn’t. On September 11, 2002, Trump was asked by Howard Stern whether he supported the invasion of Iraq. “Yeah, I guess so,” he replied. Trump has not sought to explain these comments or provide evidence of an alternative judgment he offered elsewhere. He just lies about this, and he does so often.

But that’s true for Trump across many issues. He says his health care plan will insure everyone, when it will do nothing of the kind. He says his tax plan raises taxes on the wealthy when it actually cuts them sharply. Trump has lied about his net worth, his reasons for not releasing his tax returns, and his charitable donations. He lies easily, fluently, shamelessly, constantly.

Trump’s lying is not a relic of the Republican primary. Over 25 days in September, Trump lied on at least 378 occasions, according to Toronto Star reporter Daniel Dale, who has turned simply noting Trump’s lying into a daily beat.

Trump’s lies are both big and small. He pretended not to have mocked a disabled Times reporter. He claimed Clinton wants to create an “open border” with the Middle East. He helda press conference in September to claim he had not started the “birther” rumors about President Obama’s birthplace, then preposterously accused Clinton of being behind it.

Trump is a narcissist. His towering self-regard worked for him as a real estate developer. His real business was licensing out his name for buildings, menswear, golf courses, steaks. A bit of narcissism is necessary to become a global brand. But the trait is maladaptive in a presidential candidate.

One dramatic example was the 28 minutes Trump spent talking about himself when he was supposed to be introducing Mike Pence, his vice presidential candidate, for the first time. The most grotesque example was when he responded to the deadliest mass shooting in American history by tweeting, “Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism.”

Trump has continued to refract tragedy through the prism of his own life. When NBA star Dwyane Wade mourned the death of a cousin in a Chicago shooting in August, Trump responded on Twitter:

 

✔@realDonaldTrump

Dwyane Wade’s cousin was just shot and killed walking her baby in Chicago. Just what I have been saying. African-Americans will VOTE TRUMP!

 

Then there was Trump’s private charity. As the Washington Post’s David Fahrenthold has revealed over the past several months, Trump has used money given to charity for some outrageous ends, including paying $20,000 at a charity auction for a portrait of Donald Trump and $12,000 for a football helmet autographed by Tim Tebow.

Trump admires authoritarian dictators for their authoritarianism. When MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough asked Trump about his affection for Vladimir Putin, who “kills journalists [and] political opponents, and invades countries,” Trump replied, “He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader, unlike what we have in this country.”

But it’s not just Putin. Trump has praised Saddam Hussein because “he killed terrorists. He did that so good. They didn’t read them the rights.” He said “you’ve got to give [Kim Jong Un] credit. He goes in, he takes over, and he’s the boss. It’s incredible.”

It’s not just that Trump admires these authoritarians; it’s that the thing he admires about them is their authoritarianism — their ability to dispense with niceties like a free press, due process, and political opposition.

Trump didn’t shy away from his praise of Putin as the general election approached. “If he says great things about me, I’m going to say great things about him,” Trump said at a forum in September. “I’ve already said he is very much of a leader. The man has very strong control over his country.

Trump is a conspiracy theorist. Trump burst onto the scene as a leader of the absurd “birther” movement. He’s said that Bill Ayers is the real author of Barack Obama’s Dreams From My Father, explained that the unemployment rate in America is really over 40 percent, suggested that both Antonin Scalia and Vince Foster were murdered, and argued that Ted Cruz’s father was involved in JFK’s assassination.

Trump has unleashed a torrent of anti-Semitism into the wild. I don’t believe Donald Trump bears any animus toward Jews. His son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is Jewish, and his daughter Ivanka converted to Judaism. But his candidacy has empowered anti-Semites, and he has frequently leaned into their tropes.

His final ad features Trump condemning “global special interests” and “those who control the levers of power in Washington” as pictures of Janet Yellen, Lloyd Blankfein, and George Soros — all of them Jewish — flash across the screen. It was condemned by the Anti-Defamation League for trafficking in obviously anti-Semitic stereotypes.

Jewish journalists on Twitter — myself included — have noticed the outpouring of vicious anti-Semitism Trump’s candidacy has engendered. And it’s not just nameless bigots on the internet. Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, who backs Trump, said earlier this year that a legal case involving the mogul could help “expose the entire Jewish manipulation of the American media, the American political process, control of politics in America and truly how they are the dominant and dangerous power that exists in the United States.”

Trump could, at any moment, have condemned all of this and taken a strong stand against anti-Semitism. That he hasn’t, and that he hasn’t warned his campaign to stay far from anti-Semitic messages, has spoken volumes. Again, I don’t believe Trump himself is anti-Semitic. But I certainly believe his election would embolden anti-Semites.

Trump is very, very gullible. This is related to his conspiracy theories, but Trump has a habit of believing and retweeting bad information that sounds good to him at the time.

This has led to, among other things, Trump retweeting false crime statistics, Trump retweeting Mussolini quotes from a Twitter account called Il Duce, Trump promoting a fake video claiming a protester who rushed his stage was sent by ISIS, and Trump endorsing a National Enquirer report suggesting Ted Cruz’s dad helped kill JFK. When pressed about these sundry embarrassments, Trump said, “All I know is what’s on the internet.”

That’s a reasonable response from your uncle who forwards you weird email chains, but not from a presidential candidate.

Trump doesn’t apologize, and his defensiveness escalates situations. During the Republican convention, it became very clear that Melania Trump’s 2016 convention speech had lifted two paragraphs from Michelle Obama’s 2008 convention speech. The error was an embarrassment, but it could have been dispatched quickly by simply admitting fault and apologizing.

Instead, the Trump campaign turned it into a multi-day story and a character issue by denying anything had happened and blaming Hillary Clinton. This is “an example of when a woman threatens Hillary Clinton, how she seeks out to demean her and take her down,” said campaign chair Paul Manafort in one of the most genuinely ridiculous comments in recent American history.

The campaign also tried to argue that Michelle Obama doesn’t own the English language, and that similar language was used by Twilight Sparkle, a My Little Pony (I’m serious). Finally, days later, the Trump campaign admitted there was plagiarism and blamed a miscommunication between Melania and her speechwriter.

A similar pattern played out when Trump tweeted an anti-Hillary meme that superimposed a Star of David atop a pile of money and accused Clinton of corruption. The image was obviously anti-Semitic, and the Trump campaign quickly took it down. But Trump himself went on a Twitter rampage, arguing that what was clearly a Star of David was actually just a sheriff’s star, or maybe just a regular old star, and that the campaign shouldn’t have removed the offending meme in the first place.

When the first wave of sexual assault accusers surfaced, Trump’s first impulse was to go on the offensive. In a video address to his supporters, he first rambled about how Bill Clinton had done far worse than he had. Then he held a press conference before the debate with three women who had accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault. His latest declaration, in a speech meant to preview his first 100 days in office and over the objections of advisers, was that he would sue the women who had accused him of assault as soon as the election ended.

As Vox’s Tim Lee writes, this tendency in the Oval Office could lead to tragedy: “[Trump’s] behavior on the campaign trail suggests that he would be unlikely to admit mistakes and defuse tense situations. Instead, his first instinct would be to escalate every conflict in an effort to bully foreign adversaries into giving him his way. That might work in some cases. But in others — especially against powerful countries like China or Russia — the results could be disastrous.”

Trump surrounds himself with sycophants. It’s tradition for presidential candidates to release a note from their physician testifying to their fitness to fulfill the duties of the presidency. On December 14, Trump submitted his entry to this quadrennial custom.

“If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency,” Trump’s doctor, Harold Bornstein, wrote. “His blood pressure, 110/65, and laboratory test results were astonishingly excellent. … His physical strength and stamina are extraordinary.”

This is … not how most doctor notes read. “Reached for comment regarding this, a spokesperson at the American Medical Association just giggled,” reported the Daily Beast.

There are many positions where one might accept a pliable crony. But “personal physician” should not be one of them. The fact that Trump would entrust his health to a doctor who would sign off on a note like this should terrify his family and friends. But more than that, it should disqualify him from the presidency.

Trump has proven too lazy to learn about policy. Trump didn’t know much about policy when the campaign started, and as far as anyone can tell, he hasn’t made any obvious effort to rectify that.

The latest and most damaging example is his interview with the New York Times, in which he said he would not automatically defend NATO countries against attack from Russia. It’s not obvious Trump meant to say that, or that he even knew what saying that meant, as Manafort immediately began denying Trump had ever said it. (The Times subsequently released a transcript showing that, yes, Trump had said it.)

But this is a pattern for Trump, who doesn’t bother to come up with convincing answers even to obvious questions, and definitely has not put in the time to develop a deep understanding of the issues he might face as president. As Matt Yglesias wrote, this is very much a choice Trump has made. “Trump is now the GOP nominee, and there are hundreds of professional Republican Party politicians and operatives around the country who would gladly help him become a sharper, better-informed candidate. It doesn’t happen because he can’t be bothered.”

This was never more obvious than it was during the first, second, and third presidential debates. (Well, as well as the ones during the Republican primary.) Trump got clobbered in all three contests, and they appear to have given Clinton an unprecedented, albeit temporary, boost in the polls. But what was perhaps most revealing was Trump’s refusal to even do due diligence before the high-stakes contests.

“One looks to be hunkering down with homework, research, and rehearsals,” Monica Alba and Ali Vitali reported for NBC News, “while the other seems to be taking an on-the-fly casual approach to what could be the most important 90 minutes of the presidential election.”

Trump has run an incompetent campaign and convention. As brilliant as Trump has been in securing media attention for himself and channeling the anxieties of conservative voters, he hasn’t bothered to build a real campaign organization, and his convention has been a festival of unforced errors.

This is the context of Melania Trump’s plagiarism, of Ted Cruz’s anti-endorsement, of the night of the convention that was supposed to be about jobs and the economy but was actually about Benghazi and jailing Hillary Clinton. In isolation, these are gaffes, mistakes, bad luck. Together, though, they tell a damning story of organizational incompetence.

That story has only gotten longer over the course of the campaign. Trump has effectively abandoned a ground game in a first for a modern presidential campaign. He’s been too lazyto raise money. His tweets have proven so counterproductive that his campaign aides successfully wrestled access to his account away from him.

The most generous interpretation of this is that Trump is capable of running an effective organization, but he’s just not interested in conventions and field operations in the way he is interested in golf courses and condos. Others have certainly testified to the trouble Trump has focusing on tasks that don’t engage him. His former ghostwriter says, “He has no attention span.” Unfortunately, the president actually needs to focus on all kinds of dull and unpleasant tasks.

Trump has regularly incited or justified violence among his supporters. At a rally in St. Louis, Trump lamented that “nobody wants to hurt each other anymore.”

Yes, lamented.

The topic was protesters, and Trump’s frustration was clear. “They’re being politically correct the way they take them out,” he sighed. “Protesters, they realize there are no consequences to protesting anymore. There used to be consequences. There are none anymore.”

Earlier in the campaign, two of Trump’s supporters attacked a homeless Mexican man and told the police, “Donald Trump was right — all these illegals need to be deported.” Trump’s response? “I will say that people who are following me are very passionate. They love this country, and they want this country to be great again.”

The simple fact of it is that Donald Trump should not be president of the United States. That is not because he is too conservative, as some Democrats would have it, or because he is not conservative enough, as many Republicans would have it. It’s because the presidency is a powerful job where mistakes can kill millions, and whoever holds it needs to take that power seriously and wield it responsibly.

Trump has had ample opportunity to demonstrate his sense of seriousness and responsibility. He has failed.

It is said that the benefit of America’s long presidential campaigns is they offer the candidates time to show us who they really are. Trump has shown us who he really is. He is a person who should not be president. That he is being brought this close to the presidency — that he is as close as he is to winning it — should scare us all. It certainly scares me.

http://www.vox.com

How the faithful voted: A preliminary 2016 analysis

BY GREGORY A. SMITH AND JESSICA MARTÍNEZ18 COMMENTS

The 2016 presidential exit polling reveals little change in the political alignments of U.S. religious groups. Those who supported Republican candidates in recent elections, such as white born-again or evangelical Christians and white Catholics, strongly supported Donald Trump as well. Groups that traditionally backed Democratic candidates, including religious “nones,” Hispanic Catholics and Jews, were firmly in Hillary Clinton’s corner.

While earlier in the campaign some pundits and others questioned whether the thrice-married Trump would earn the bulk of white evangelical support, fully eight-in-ten self-identified white, born-again/evangelical Christians say they voted for Trump, while just 16% voted for Clinton. Trump’s 65-percentage-point margin of victory among voters in this group – which includes self-described Protestants, as well as Catholics, Mormons and others – matched or exceeded the victory margins of George W. Bush in 2004, John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012.

(For more on the 2016 exit polls, see “Behind Trump’s victory: Divisions by race, gender, education” and “Hillary Clinton wins Latino vote, but falls below 2012 support for Obama.” For an explanation of how exit polls are conducted, see “Just how does the general election exit poll work, anyway?” )

White Catholics also supported Trump over Clinton by a wide, 23-point margin (60% to 37%), rivaling Romney’s 19-point victory among those in this group. Trump’s strong support among white Catholics propelled him to a 7-point edge among Catholics overall (52% to 45%) despite the fact that Hispanic Catholics backed Clinton over Trump by a 41-point margin (67% to 26%). 

Presidential Vote By Religious Attendance

Like Hispanic Catholics, religious “nones” and Jews were strong Clinton supporters. Indeed, nearly seven-in-ten religious “nones” voted for Clinton, as did 71% of Jews. Most people who identify with faiths other than Christianity or Judaism also favored Clinton over Trump, 62% to 29%.

Exit polls also follow another pattern from recent elections: Most weekly churchgoers backed Trump over Clinton, 56% to 40%. Those who said they attend religious services more sporadically (i.e., somewhere between a few times a month and a few times a year) were closely divided. And, those who said they don’t attend religious services at all backed Clinton over Trump by a 31-point margin (62% to 31%). There is one caveat, however; while exit polling from previous elections shows similarities, direct comparisons between 2016 and previous years are not possible because the wording of the question about religious attendance changed in 2016.

Religious Makeup of The Electorate

Finally, the religious makeup of the electorate remained largely the same, although there were some small differences between voters in this election and those in other recent presidential contests. While roughly a quarter of  voters in 2016 described themselves as white, born-again or evangelical Christians (26%), which is unchanged compared with 2012 and 2008, the nearly one-quarter of Catholic voters (23%) may constitute a slight decline in the Catholic share of the electorate, compared with 2012 (25%) and 2008 (27%). In addition, religious “nones” accounted for 15% of all voters, a modest 3-point increase since 2012.

This preliminary analysis reflects data for 2016 as published by NBCNews.com and/or CNN.com as of 11 a.m. on Nov. 9, 2016. If data are subsequently re-weighted by the National Election Pool (NEP), the consortium of news organizations that conducts the exit polls, the numbers reported here may differ slightly from figures accessible through the websites of NEP member organizations.

Pew Research Analysis

Trump is the distillation of every horrible American excess.
Trump is a bigot. Trump is sexist and an alleged sexual predator, Trump is vindictive, Trump is a liar, Trump is narcissistic, Trump admires authoritarian dictators for their authoritarianism, Trump is a conspiracy theorist, Trump has unleashed a torrent of racism and anti-Semitism into the wild, Trump is extremely ignorant and very, very gullible, Trump doesn’t apologize, and his defensiveness escalates dangerous situations, Trump surrounds himself with sycophants, Trump has proven too lazy to learn about policy, Trump has run an incompetent campaign and convention and it only follows that his presidency will exarcerbate his incompetency, Trump has regularly incited or justified violence among his supporters,

When the KKK celebrates Trump’s election with victory parade, there is a problem that has not been fully resolved and will only become worse with Trump’s rhetoric and behavior.

KKK celebrating Trump’s election with victory parade

The Ku Klux Klan couldn’t be happier about the presidential election of Donald Trump.

To celebrate Trump’s shock win over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, a chapter of America’s most notorious hate group will hold a victory parade in North Carolina.

A Trump spokeswoman on Friday morning said, “Mr. Trump and his team continue to disavow these groups and individuals and strongly condemn their message of hate.”

The Pelham, NC-based Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan announced on its website that the parade will be held on Dec. 3, although an exact location and time was not posted.

The group’s website reads, “TRUMP = TRUMP’S RACE UNITED MY PEOPLE,” along with a photo of Trump with an emblem around the image that reads “President of the United States.”

The parade is being advertised as the “Victory Klavalkade Klan Parade.”

The homepage for the group also reads, “Racial greetings from the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.”

Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke called Trump’s presidential victory “one of the most exciting nights of my life.”

Early Wednesday, Duke, an avowed white supremacist, credited his supporters for playing a role in Trump’s succession to the White House.

“Make no mistake about it, our people have played a HUGE role in electing Trump! #MAGA,” Duke tweeted.

http://nypost.com/2016/11/11/kkk-celebrating-trumps-election-with-victory-parade/

Eventually, even the staunchest Trump voters will be disappointed as he begins to govern. That is not a fact of “if” but of “when”. That is a problem of being the governing party. That is a fact of American presidential history and has been specifically displayed in the presidencies of Obama, George Bush 41 & 43 and & Bill Clinton. TRump’s personality and ignorance just makes this possibility extremely dangerous for the Unites States and the world at large.

The staunchest Trump voters will be disappointed as he begins to govern because either his extreme, xenophobic policies will be enacted (the dog whistle to hate based on religion, ethnicity, racism) or his policies will be fought tooth and nail by responsible American in government and civil society.

When Trump voters get what they want

“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” So wrote H.L. Mencken a century ago. In our form of democracy, though, the people often don’t get what they want. But with the election of Donald Trump, that is about to change.

Among the central elements of the U.S. Constitution are checks and balances, achieved through separation of powers. The idea, James Madison wrote, is that “ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”

By design, Congress is a restraint on the president. The president has tools to contain Congress. The U.S. Supreme Court, whose members are chosen by the other two branches, has the last word on what they do.

“In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men,” explained Madison, “the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

The scheme is the source of chronic frustration born of stalemate. Presidents fail to keep their promises because Congress rebels. Congress can’t enact its agenda because it lacks the votes to override vetoes. And even if they can agree on what to do, their plans may die in the Supreme Court.

The beauty of a parliamentary system is efficiency. If you elect a party that promises to take some action, you can bet the action will be taken. The prospect of getting what you vote for concentrates the mind on what you really want.

Our system encourages voters to be less careful, because winning candidates often fall short of their proclaimed intentions. Barack Obama‘s 2009 stimulus package had to be smaller than liberal economists urged so it could pass. He got health care reform, only to see the Supreme Court invalidate significant portions. In 2008, his supporters voted for “hope and change,” but the ensuing change was glacial and dispiriting.

Things will be different for President Trump. His party controls both houses of Congress, and he will get to restore the Supreme Court’s Republican-appointed majority. The constitutional checks will be largely irrelevant. Trump and members of his party will be free to do what they campaigned on. Voters who didn’t take their plans literally may be surprised when they come to pass.

A trade war is imminent because Trump has vowed to scrap the Trans-Pacific Partnership, signed by Obama, while threatening to levy a 45 percent tariff on Chinese goods and abandon NAFTA. Obamacare will be history. The nuclear deal with Iran is a dead letter.

Construction will start on a border wall with Mexico, and the government will step up efforts to deport undocumented immigrants. Tax cuts to boost economic growth will become law.

His supporters may cheer each achievement. But they may not be so pleased when they go to Wal-Mart or Home Depot and find that Trump’s tariffs have raised the price of everything from clothing to power tools.

He tweeted that instead of Obamacare, “we will have MUCH less expensive and MUCH better health care.” Some of his supporters may miss the Affordable Care Act when they lose their coverage. What will they think when they have to pay more for something they like less?

How will Trump’s followers feel when Iran resumes the nuclear weapons program that Obama’s deal halted — or if the United States and Israel launch a war against Iran in response?

What will they say when Mexico refuses to pay for that wall? Or when it turns out that, as an editorial in The Wall Street Journal noted, deporting all the undocumented foreigners “would demand the departure, on average, of 84 buses and 47 chartered flights every day for two years” — which isn’t going to happen?

Trump can promise 4 percent annual GDP growth year in and year out, but he has no clue how to produce it. Trump supporters dismayed by the huge increase in the federal debt since 2008 should brace for an even bigger one under him.

If Trump’s plans lead to failure or disaster, he and the Republican Party will own the results. And the voters who put their faith in him will have no one to blame but themselves.

They may come to understand the wisdom of Oscar Wilde. “There are only two tragedies in life,” he wrote. “One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.”

Steve Chapman, a member of the Tribune Editorial Board, blogs at www.chicagotribune.com

American people have voted Donald Trump into the Presidency. American people have a responsibility to keep Trump and his authoritation, ignorant, dangerous impulses in check. Based on his action and his rhetoric, I will continue to protest. Even though the the United States is a robust constitutional republic, which is difficult to deviate from every system can be hacked or abused. Trump has the personality and inclination to do so. Donald Trump and his administration will not have a blank check from me.
Donald Trump, the United States and Americans of every creed, color, race and position need to develop and develop a strong Loyal Opposition model for every Trump action and proposal. Donald Trump will not get a free pass. He has left Trump Tower.

Donald Trump promised to execute extreme vetting. He will also receive it during every step he takes.

Trump is on notice.The burden of proof is on Donald Trump to be an American President. Americans will hold Trump responsible for his actions from Day 1.