Donald Trump treated the 2016 primary cycle like a WWE wrestling match. So, when it comes to uniting Republicans around him — let alone Americans — he’s in a steel cage death match against … himself.
The Donald Trump “make nice” tour makes a stop Thursday on Capitol Hill, where the presumptive GOP nominee will attempt to mend fences with House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and other Republican leaders he spent most of the last year needling. For months on end, he has ran a campaign fueled by insults and Twitter beefs, antagonizing some of the very people he will depend on in his general election battle.
There’s a lot of talk about Trump making the so-called pivot to the general election — and a lot of disagreement about whether he can or even wants to. But to put it in pro wrestling argot, Trump must execute the pivot from “heel” to “face.” From bad boy villain to pretty boy hero. Here is look at who Trump must convince that he has given up his villainous ways.
Hispanics: Trump kicked off his campaign by calling Hispanics — a constituency Republicans were hoping to attract in 2016 — “criminals,” “drug dealers” and “rapists,” and has continued to insist that all undocumented immigrants be deported. His latest entreaty to the quickly growing demographic? A tweeted photo of him with a taco bowl that said “I love Hispanics!”
Veterans: It is still unclear whether veteran groups received the donations Trump promised them in a fundraising event that served as counter-programming for a debate Trump boycotted. And let’s not forget what Trump said about Sen. John McCain (R-AZ): that he likes “people who weren’t captured.” Asked to apologize this week, Trump shrugged it off because his poll numbers spiked after he said it.
The Koch brothers: Trump belittled the major GOP donors — “I hear the Koch brothers are in big financial trouble (oil)” — to bash their “puppets,” his primary rivals. Charles Koch later said the unthinkable when he floated that Hillary Clinton might be a better president.
Anti-abortion groups: Trump’s struggle with expressing the proper anti-abortion message prompted one top activist to accuse him of “ set[ting] back years of hard work in the pro-life movement.”
The Bush family: It’s no wonder Bush 41 and Bush 43 want to sit out 2016, after Trump blamed President George W. Bush for 9/11, mocked Barbara Bush for stumping for Jeb Bush, and labeled Jeb “low-energy.”
Mark Zuckerberg and the tech industry: Trump accused the Facebook creator — an immigration reform proponent — of manipulating the H1B visa program to screw over Americans workers. Zuckerberg, meanwhile, alluded to Trump in a speech decrying the “fearful voices calling for building walls and distancing people they label as others.“
Jewish voters: It was a little awkward when Trump’s remarks to a top Jewish group stressed his abilities as a negotiator like “you folks” and bragged that they would support him because, “I don’t want your money.” Oh and then there’s Trump’s refusal to disavow the anti-Semitic threats made by his supporters because, “I don’t know anything about that.”
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts: Trump has called the George W. Bush-appointee a “liberal,” “an absolute disaster” and “a nightmare for conservatives.”
Muslims: Donald Trump will ban them from entering the United States — but only temporarily, he swears, “until we are able to determine and understand this problem.” Now, he also wants to set up a commission headed by Rudy Giuliani “to take a very serious look at this problem.”
Trump University students: Trump brags his education program has a “98 percent” approval rating, but that hasn’t stopped a class-action lawsuit from his former students alleging Trump of fraud, false advertising, and unfair business.
Women: How does one address a massive favorability gap with women — one that includes the disapproval of subset that in the past have leaned Republican, like white women women and married women? This week, Trump said that women “get it better than we do folks. They get it better than we do.”
Paul Ryan: The bad blood between the bright-eyed House speaker and red-headed fear-mongerer goes deeper than this cycle alone. Backed in 2011, he ripped Ryan for his “political suicide” of a budget deal, while accusing him of being a “bad poker player, and he’s a bad chess player.” The feud has continued, and after Ryan withheld his support of Trump, Trump slapped back: “I am not ready to support Speaker Ryan’s agenda.”
it’s pretty early and the coffee hasn’t quite kicked in but does it make me a bad person to actually agree with Donnie Dimwit on this statement?
Neither Trump nor Ryan are to be believed. They are both extreme right wingers.
Ryan and Trump may be dancing around each other, or at least pretending to, but come November they will be in full lockstep together re: bigotry and racism. They have way more in common than not. Especially regarding bashing women and minorities and destroying economies.
Uhhh, no one?
Why would Donny have to make nice to groups that his fellow Republicans targeted with Voter ID laws? Democrats are deluding themselves if they din’t think Voter ID will stack the deck for Trump and the GOP!