How Donald Trump is making the GOP look bad.

I didn’t want to discuss Donald Trump. For the past few weeks I saw Donald Trump as more of a troll than someone who was a serious politician running for president. However, with the recent GOP debates I decided that it was time to finally start taking Trump seriously. Because he is running for president and right now, he’s representing the GOP.

Donald Trump has become news over the past few months when he threw his hat in the ring and announced he was running for president in 2016. However, what really caught our attention was some of the incredibly obnoxious things he’s said since, and the outrageous things that he actually believes. He’s stated that vaccines cause autism, a myth that’s been debunked over and over again. He announced that as president he would try and build a brick wall to try and keep out undocumented immigrants (which Mexico will support because he told them too). Why would he suggest such an outlandish, expensive idea? Because he legitimately believes that undocumented immigrants (and Hispanics) are drug lords, criminals, and rapists.  This speech not only painted all undocumented immigrants in a negative light, but all Hispanic Americans as well. He continues to defend this statement, using it to justify his ideas on undocumented immigration. Soon after, he started coming after women. When a bill failed to pass that would defund Planned Parenthood, Donald Trump stated that he would shut down the government until it was de-funded. The last government shutdown in 2013 cost billions of dollars and hurt many, many people across the country. He would do it again to shut down women’s healthcare. Even conservative women aren’t safe from Trump’s misogyny. During the first GOP debate, Fox News journalist Megyn Kelly asked Donald Trump about the rude and personal comments made towards women he disagreed with. Trump responded “just Rosie O’Donnell”, and then went on to say that Megyn Kelly had “blood coming out of her whatever” in an attempt to discredit her as a journalist.

So, what is it exactly that makes the GOP look bad? Other politicians claim that it’s the things he says that makes him look bad. However, it’s much, much more than that. Donald Trump has said many racist, sexist, and queerphobic things throughout the past few months and he is leading the polls. He surged in an Iowa poll after the infamous GOP debate, and while this may not predict the 2016 primary winner, the fact that he is winning at all says a lot about Republicans. Donald Trump still has a lot of defenders within the Republican Party, including Bristol Palin and Ted Cruz. Despite what other candidates try to say, these poll numbers tell me that Republicans feel that someone who is racist and sexist represents them. Somebody who thinks that other countries work on his whim because he’s Donald Trump and he says so. Somebody who thinks that the only people that matter are rich, white men.

The other thing is, what he says isn’t that far from what Republicans actually think. Jeb Bush stated that Trump was hurting women voters not a week after he stated that women’s health is overfunded. Many Republican candidates, including Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and Chris Christie, have vowed to end Planned Parenthood, with Ted Cruz also agreeing to shut the government down over it. Republican candidates all spoke up when a Fox News anchor faced misogyny, but said nothing when Donald Trump told Hillary Clinton she couldn’t run because she can’t please her husband. It’s incredibly difficult for me to believe that Donald Trump doesn’t represent Republicans when it was last summer that they were suing Obama because of the DREAM act. While what Trump is saying is too outlandish for even Republicans, the reason he may be winning polls is because what he’s saying isn’t far from what Republicans legitimately think. That, in of itself, says a lot about who Republicans are really helping and really representing.

I don’t think Trump will win the nomination, but I am watching his campaign closely. Because for every racist, sexist, and downright outlandish thing he says, it’s opening our eyes to the Republican Party. He is making them look bad, and eventually GOP candidates will have to realize why if they want to appeal to the majority of Americans.