What are people looking for in a candidate during the 2018 midterm elections? Primarily, they want to bring the country back to civility from the environment that the Jerry Springer of politics, Donald Trump has created. They are looking for honesty, integrity, and politician’s ability to work with others across the aisle. Now, they believe they have found it in this candidate.
Texas’ enthusiastic, authentic, Representative Beto O’Rourke (D-TX), appeared with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on the Hardball University of Houston show. He has been running against Senate Ted Cruz (R-TX) and has a very good chance of winning, but only if people come out and vote.
He told the audience that Trump’s “neo-Nazis are very fine people” attitude just was not working:
‘The invitation to hate openly, unapologetically, to call Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals, to call asylum seekers animals, an infestation, to describe white nationalists, Klansmen, neo-Nazis as very fine people, that has certainly contributed to the environment that we see in this country at this moment.’
Beto, which is Robert O’Rourke’s childhood nickname, continued, noting that he had traveled to all of Texas’ over 250 counties on a listening tour:
‘We are more than the president of the United States, the current occupant of the White House. I know that from traveling the state and finding Republicans who may have voted for Trump who don’t approve of this kind of behavior, this kind of rhetoric.’
O’Rourke has found a way to stand up firmly for what he knows is right and yet be able to disagree with Trump without making his own campaign about the president. The representative did call out POTUS for calling the factual news in print and television “fake news” and “enemy of the people.”
Trump blamed the media for over a dozen pipe bombs being mailed to top Democratic leaders, a top donor (who happens to be Jewish), and CNN — even though the man was a huge fan of the commander-in-chief. Beto said:
‘This idea fronted by the president that somehow the press are the enemy of the people, reinforced by him tweeting out images of a reporter being hit by a train, body-slammed in a wrestling ring, is incitement to violence. I don’t know any other way to call it. That undermines an essential pillar of the American democracy…Nothing guarantees us a 243rd or a 244th year, unless of us stand up for the institutions that make us so strong in the first place. So, I think we need to vigorously defend the freedom of the press.’
The Democratic candidate’s appearance was scheduled in advance of the horrific mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania that killed 11 and wounded another six, including four police officers. On the same day O’Rourke appeared, Trump decided to fly to the synagogue — in spite of the mayor and the affected families pleading with him to wait until they had buried their dead.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sander defended the man sitting in the Oval Office:
‘I think it’s irresponsible to blame the president and members of his administration for those heinous acts.’
Cruz is still ahead of O’Rourke, but the race is close enough that the Texas representative could pull a win. It all depends upon voter turnout.
Featured image is a screenshot via YouTube.
