Self-righteous GOP and Donald Trump's candidacy

Donald J. Trump is just a man, but his candidacy for President of the United States might be called a phenomenon.  According to now-humbled conventional wisdom, his non-existent political experience combined with his public antics -- crude, boorish behaviors which are apparently intended to distract his audience from recognizing the shallowness of his knowledge and thoughtfulness on issues of domestic and foreign policies -- should have doomed the Trump candidacy long ago.  Yet with the results of this week's New York primary, Trump has captured about 40% of the Republican popular vote, and 49% of the nominating delegates awarded to date.  So much for conventional wisdom.

Why has this happened?  Here is one reader's answer to this question:

Self-righteous GOP created Donald Trump

Republican voters who are in the category of the so-called disenfranchised and who favor presidential candidate Donald Trump have been the pawns of the Republican establishment for decades.

These establishment Republicans, these self-righteous politicians who have been gerrymandering themselves into office for years, are now complaining of Trump's demagoguery, but they have been spouting inconsistencies and contradictions and exaggeration and outright lies for years.

They have traded in fear and hatred and division. They have demonized and slandered and demeaned. They have belittled legitimate government, called the good people who try to run the country incompetent, wasteful, and corrupt. They have refused to govern, underfunded the government,  refused to compromise, refused to consider the needs of the people of the country above their own self interests or the interests of the billionaires and corporations that have funded their campaigns.   

And now they wring their hands and scurry around looking for someone to blame for Trump's ascendance to leadership of the Republican Party: the media, the president, the rules, the trees, the grass. Anyone and anything but themselves. But they have created Trump. Indeed, they are Trump. They hate him because he has learned their lessons too well and because he can't be controlled.

And mostly they hate him because Trump may cause them to lose. Just let him get ahead in the polls for a day or so and you'll see them jump on his train like spineless sycophants, elbowing each other for a chance to stand at his side.  

Even now, some are snuggling up to his brand of hatred and division and calculating what might be in it for them. 

--Andy Garcia, Long Beach CA