While the majority of the Republican party may be all but unrecognizable at this point, some conservatives do recognize that a poisonous bully currently occupies the highest office in the land. Ahead of Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign kick-off rally in Orlando, Florida, a conservative newspaper that hasn’t failed to endorse GOP candidates in many years announced their endorsement: anyone but Donald Trump.
Trump will kickoff of his re-election campaign in Orlando tonight.
The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board just dropped this: "We're here to announce our endorsement for president in 2020, or, at least, who we're not endorsing: Donald Trump." https://t.co/TQhvlHsCUQ
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 18, 2019
While the writers of the editorial listed many reasons that they cannot endorse Trump and are horrified by his behavior, it is specifically “Trump’s successful assault on truth…followed closely by his war on decency” that forced them to call for change. The editorial board of The Orlando Sentinel writes:
‘We’re here to announce our endorsement for president in 2020, or, at least, who we’re not endorsing: Donald Trump.
‘Some readers will wonder how we could possibly eliminate a candidate so far before an election, and before knowing the identity of his opponent.
‘Because there’s no point in pretending we would ever recommend that readers vote for Trump.’
The Orlando Sentinel @osopinion editorial board makes early 2020 endorsement for president: Not Donald Trump @JoeNBC @CBSThisMorning @GMA @TODAYshow https://t.co/owa5Hfva30 pic.twitter.com/cF1OspFOgP
— Roger Simmons (@RogerSimmons) June 18, 2019
They went on to detail some of the abhorrent behavior this country has witnessed from Trump, but more importantly, it’s about what that behavior has inspired in his followers that is most frightening. Particularly, Trump’s tendency to lie in the face of indisputable facts that boggles the mind, as well as his followers’ tendency to shrug off his lies no matter how outrageously false.
‘After 2 1/2 years, we’ve seen enough.
‘Enough of the chaos, the division, the schoolyard insults, the self-aggrandizement, the corruption, and especially the lies.
‘So many lies — from white lies to whoppers — told out of ignorance, laziness, recklessness, expediency or opportunity.
‘Trump’s capacity for lying isn’t the surprise here, though the frequency is.
‘It’s the tolerance so many Americans have for it.’
Our endorsement for president in 2020: Not Donald Trump | Editorial
https://t.co/GRWlzh5365 pic.twitter.com/UIvlJzGs6H— Orlando Sentinel (@orlandosentinel) June 18, 2019
For Trump, lies, threats, schoolyard bully insults, obstruction of justice, a disrespect of the law, and even rape accusations are barely enough to register on the news cycle radar because Trump’s supporters simply do not care. The Sentinel noted that, in any other election and at any other time in history, these stories, and particularly the insane lies, would have been the undoing of any serious politician.
‘Not so for Trump, who claimed in 2017 that he lost the popular vote because millions of people voted illegally (they didn’t). In 2018 he said North Korea was no longer a nuclear threat (it is). And in 2019 he said windmills cause cancer (they don’t). Just last week he claimed the media fabricated unfavorable results from his campaign’s internal polling (it didn’t).’
The newspaper in Orlando, where the president is set to officially kick off his re-election bid Tuesday, has already announced its 2020 White House endorsement: anyone but Donald Trump https://t.co/KLdTVIHhtc
— POLITICO (@politico) June 18, 2019
Featured image via Flickr by Gage Skidmore under a Creative Commons license
