From the Left

/

Politics

Does Trump Really Want To Win?

By Clarence Page, Tribune Content Agency on

I used to chuckle when Donald Trump called himself a "unifier." So far, the Republican front-runner has been about as unifying as a fox in a henhouse.

Yet unity appeared in unexpected ways after his comments on abortion rights in a town meeting with host Chris Matthews on MSNBC. The Donald's views, which he appeared to be sorting out even as we watched, amazingly brought pro-choice and anti-abortion leaders together on common ground -- against him!

Hemming and hawing like a student who had forgotten to study his homework, Trump tried and failed to change the subject before he finally seemed to decide what he believes.

That required a big leap for him. He supported abortion rights through all nine months of pregnancy in the 1990s. Now as frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, Trump has evolved. Now, he said, he believes that women who have an abortion should be subject to "some kind of punishment."

Trump's allies in that cause were no happier with that answer than his adversaries were. The anti-abortion side has long insisted that service providers, not women seeking an abortion, should be prosecuted -- even though simple logic tells me that if abortion is "murder," as the anti-abortion movement insists, the woman who has one would be at least an accomplice.

So, as pro-choice politicians and other activists said in effect "We told you so," anti-abortion leaders tried to clean up the damage. Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, for example, called Trump's remarks "completely out of touch with the pro-life movement and even more with women who have chosen such a sad thing as abortion."

 

How bad was the damage? So bad that Trump, who normally refuses to apologize or give even a nod to political correctness, completely recanted his abortion statement and issued a new one.

"The woman is a victim in this case, as is the life in her womb," said the statement, which sounded downright non-Trumpian in its grace and civility.

Trump's abortion stumble took attention away from his wobbly views on the use of nuclear weapons. He waffled from considering nukes as a possible weapon against the Islamic State, to refusing to consider the use of nukes in Europe to "I'm not going to use nuclear, but I'm not taking any cards off the table."

With that, our overseas allies are likely trembling more than our enemies are.

...continued

swipe to next page

(c) 2016 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

 

 

Comics

Gary Markstein Mike Luckovich Bill Bramhall Jack Ohman Michael Ramirez Bob Englehart