HATE WON'T WIN

…Or will it.  

I hate to think, talk, write about Donald trump.  And yet I do.  I am a moth drawn to a flame.  He is so vile.  His message so hateful.  His words are lawless and intended to incite violence.  

He is anti-Christian in every way imaginable, yet he seems to have the evangelicals on his side.  His rallies are disgusting displays of bravado with absolutely no substance.  He can’t even speak coherently, yet people applaud. 

That’s the scary part.  A lot of people love this guy.

HATE WON'T WIN.  

Or will it?

He is as anti-American as any person or force, yet he wows the crowd by saying anyone who disagrees with him is anti-American and should be punished.  He rants on about how the protestors who have been violently ejected from his rallies are disrespectful and evil because they often raise what he calls “the bad finger” yet he curses like a drunken sailor.  And isn’t he and his Trumpeters giving the finger to the Republican Party and – indeed – all of America?

Christian?  When asked if he ever asks God for forgiveness, he said - no. "When I drink my little wine — which is about the only wine I drink — and have my little cracker, I guess that is a form of asking for forgiveness, and I do that as often as possible because I feel cleansed. I think in terms of 'let's go on and let's make it right.”  

He gives himself communion and everything is right with the world.

He is the bully, the class clown, the arrogant, self-righteous teacher’s pet who punches when the teacher isn’t looking then smiles as acts, “WHO, ME?” when he caught.  

And he is the textbook definition of pathological liar.

Politifact (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize) regularly rates statements by politicians so that we can determine the truthiness of their rhetoric.  The following are the results of the Republican debate in Miami.

·       True1  (1%) (1)

·       Mostly True 7 (6%)( 7)

·       Half True 17 (15%) (17)

·       Mostly False 19 (17%) (19)

·       False 45 (41%) (45)

·       Pants on Fire 21 (19%)

Trump likes to think of himself as number one.  And in the case of lying – he truly is.  

• "I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down," he said at a Nov. 21 rally in Birmingham, Ala. "And I watched in Jersey City, N.J., where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down. Thousands of people were cheering." Pants on Fire. There is no video of thousands of people in Jersey City cheering. Weeks later, Trump continues to stand by his claim but has not been able to point to evidence to back it up. Public safety officials on the ground in New Jersey say it never happened.

• "The Mexican government ... they send the bad ones over." Pants on Fire. There’s no evidence to show the Mexican government encourages criminals to cross the border. Most illegal immigration comes from people seeking work. Recent estimates show illegal immigration from Mexico dropped off dramatically during the recession and has remained low.

• "Whites killed by whites — 16%. Whites killed by blacks — 81%," said an image he shared on Twitter. Pants on Fire. Most people are killed by someone they know, and someone of the same race. The correct number for whites killed by whites was 82 percent in 2014, while the number of whites killed by blacks was 15 percent.

He usually shrugs off his lies with something akin to…  I am not the only one who lies…

When Bill O’Reilly asked him about the inaccuracy of some statements, he said, "Hey, Bill, Bill, am I gonna check every statistic? I get millions and millions of people...”

"People maybe call me out, but they turn out to be wrong, also," was his reply to George Stephanapoluos.  

I teach little kids.  "He did it too," is about the level of a second grader, who is not very good at blame shifting.

As it turns out, he just goes by the old – if I say it long enough and loud enough people will just believe me.  And it’s working, right?  MANY people don’t seem to care about the truth.

They just like his style.

HATE WON'T WIN.  Or will it?

The really freaky thing to me is his calls to violence.  Sure he would waterboard – and a lot more than that.  He doesn’t care about the Geneva Convention. "They said to me, 'What do you think of waterboarding?' I said I think it’s great, but we don't go far enough. It’s true. We don't go far enough. We don't go far enough." 

 War crimes?  No big deal.

Who hasn’t seen his followers jeering, cursing, spitting on and sucker punching peaceful protesters who dare to interrupt his rallies?  Here are his own words about the violence at his rallies.

"See the first group, I was nice. Oh, take your time. The second group, I was pretty nice," he said. "The third group, I'll be a little more violent. And the fourth group, I'll say get the hell out of here!"

"Maybe he should have been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing," Trump said. "I have a lot of fans, and they were not happy about it. And this was a very obnoxious guy who was a trouble-maker who was looking to make trouble."

"If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them," he said. "Just knock the hell out of them. I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees."

"Here's a guy, throwing punches, nasty as hell, screaming at everything else, when we're talking...," he said. "I'd like to punch him in the face, I tell ya."

"You know what I hate? There’s a guy, totally disruptive, throwing punches, we're not allowed to punch back anymore. I love the old days. You know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They’d be carried out on a stretcher, folks," Trump said.

"He was swinging, he was hitting people, and the audience hit back," Trump said about an unspecified protester. "That's what we need more of."

Trump breaks the laws of this country by inciting violence.  Although his speech is protected by the first amendment, he is yelling “FIRE!” in a crowded auditorium.  Yet, in his sneaky way, he can weasel out of the violence he stirs up.  After all, HE isn’t throwing the punch. 

I like to think of us – The US – as decent folks.  While we have a long way to go, I like to think we have come a long way toward acceptance.  

I’d like to think that HATE WON’T WIN.

Or will it?