Donald Trump (pictured above), is the Republican party's politically incorrect 2016 presumptive nominee for president. Image credit: graphic design and text by Roy Steele | Donald Trump caricature by Donkey Hotey

by Roy Steele

Iconic broadcaster Larry King has covered and interviewed world leaders and politicians for over fifty years, and he's interviewed real estate developer Donald Trump countless times over the last thirty years. At some point during each encounter, King asks Trump if he's a Republican or Democrat. Most times the answer has been the same. “I’m a Republican,” he says. He admitted to openly flirting with being a Democrat in the nineties before he considered running for president with Jesse Ventura and the Reform party. He officially registered as a Republican in 2012, and some people question whether he is really a card carrying Republican. The last GOP presumptive nominee with a Democratic Party past was Ronald Wilson Reagan, our fortieth president.

Republicans hold tenuous majorities in the House and Senate. Their primary accomplishment over the last six years has been shutting down the federal government, and obstructing President Obama’s legislative agenda; Donald Trump has convinced GOP primary voters that he can be a different kind of leader who will break through the gridlock in Washington, D.C. He asserts that he will work with both Republicans and Democrats to negotiate and advance his policies, which will “make America great again.”

During a live interview on CNN with Jake Tapper on Thursday, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) said “I’m just not ready” to embrace or endorse the Republican party’s presumptive nominee for President. Ryan stated unequivocally that in order for Trump to earn his support, he would have to convince him that he would advance the conservative principles of the party and “appeal to a wide, vast majority of Americans.”

In the world of the talking heads in print and broadcast media, who provide their biased opinions about political campaigns and speeches, liberals and conservatives alike said that Speaker Ryan’s “non-endorsement” was a cataclysmic earthquake. Really? Ryan has been telegraphing for months that he was not a fan of Donald Trump and his racist, misogynistic, and divisive rhetoric. Who is a fan of Trump’s inflammatory discourse and worldview?

Republicans and Democrats alike have been offended and turned off by Donald Trump’s proclamations over the last year. Trump has falsely claimed that Mexican immigrants are rapists and drug dealers to justify spending billions of dollars building the ‘great wall of Trump’ on our southern border. He has called for an unconstitutional ban on Muslims entering the United States because of terrorist attacks in Europe.  Trump experienced sudden memory loss when he refused to disavow the support of Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and the white nationalist movement, and shouted he’ll be great “for women” while he continued to defame, disrespect and denigrate them.

Presidents George Herbert Walker Bush and George W. Bush are sitting out the 2016 contest and will not support Donald Trump, while Senator John S. McCain (R-AZ) and former governor Willard Mitt Romney (R-MA), the last two GOP nominees for president, will not support him either. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) refuse to support Trump, and Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) said that she supports the nominee of her party but does not endorse him (whatever that means).

Many pundits and politicians and rank and file voters forget that what motivates millions of people to support Trump’s incendiary campaign is the fact that he has disavowed being politically correct, which is the same issue that energizes his opponents in and out of the Republican party.

If we are going to move forward as a nation, we need to be open to proposals and ideas from every corner of the political spectrum. We must encourage vigorous discussions and contentious debates in the halls of Congress and statehouses across the country. We must find a way to respect opposing views and promote compromise at the same time, because that is what has produced positive change and sustained our political institutions for over two hundred and forty years. That is what being politically correct is all about. Progress and change and moving forward require being politically correct.

Moreover, that is why Donald Trump will never acquire the keys to the Oval office. We need our leaders and politicians to be politically correct.