Does the Media Demonize Trump? Many Wish That Were True.

Donald Trump is a mixture of jester, racist and homegrown demagogue. However, it is a false picture, created by the unfair media. Indeed, Trump has a second face: he is presidential, gallant, a statesman. Republican leaders have been feeding us this kind of story since Trump announced that he was going to run for president last year.

The hope that Donald Trump will change into somebody completely different resembles the wishful thinking of Polish publicists who hoped that that Andrzej Duda would manifest independence from Jaroslav Kaczynski and stop being his straw man. Meanwhile, since last year, all indications have proven that Duda is only a puppet president, and that Trump is the same person whom we watch every day during his campaign: a racist, a homegrown demagogue, a person who will do everything to promote himself and insult everybody who will oppose him.

Donald Trump’s Arsenal of Raving

A list of Trump’s oratorical achievements is as long as the list of bankruptcies of his other businesses. He has called Mexicans a band of rapists and criminals, would like to build a great wall on the border with Mexico, for which … Mexico would pay, he wants to withdraw the U.S. from the World Trade Organization and reject the declarations made during COP21* (because global warming is a farce), and unleash a tariff war with China. The billionaire said that all evangelical Christians and gays would vote for him, because they love him. He also promises to ban all Muslim immigration to the United States “until we figure out what is going on.” He has even declared that if he had been the president in 2001, he would have stopped the attacks on the World Trade Center—undoubtedly with his eloquence. Not only is he insulting to women and ethnic minorities, but also to colleagues in his own party.

This whole arsenal of raving which Trump has been feeding his supporters and the rest of Americans did not stop him from winning the Republican nomination. What is more, the more Trump has discredited himself in the eyes of every normal person, the more support he has received. However, something has broken down in recent days. First, Trump, in his style, insulted the Khans, who lost their son serving in the U.S. Army in Iraq. In this indeed wonderful speech, Khizr Khan said that Trump had never sacrificed anything for his country. In response, the billionaire scoffed that Khan’s wife did not utter even a single word during Khizr’s statement, because her husband, a Muslim, had forbidden her to do so. Americans always greatly respect families of fallen soldiers, so when it turned out that the woman didn’t speak because of her sorrow over losing her son, Trump’s poll results dropped.

A Joke in Poor Taste?

For a while it seemed that he had touched bottom. But… soon after this, Trump, during one of his political rallies, suggested that Hillary Clinton and justices of the Supreme Court nominated by her would revoke the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which provides Americans (according to some interpretations) unlimited access to firearms. When the audience started to boo, Trump added that there was nothing to do about this unless the Second Amendment’s defenders acted. There was no doubt among the audience that Trump had just suggested shooting Clinton; cameras even registered one of the gathered Trump supporters saying incredulously to his wife: “Wow!” Indeed, calling for killing political opponents has not taken place in U.S. history since the American Civil War when the Confederates wanted “to show Lincoln a way to Heaven.”**

What do the Republican leaders think about this? Nothing. Or almost nothing. Paul Ryan and John McCain, who have been insulted by Trump before, said that it was a joke in poor taste and that calling for assassination was unacceptable. Still, they did not withdraw their support from the rowdy billionaire. Both Ryan and McCain want to get pregnant without losing their virginity. On the one hand they are declaring that their support for Trump is not a blank check, which means that they can withdraw it. On the other hand, it is difficult to imagine what else Trump could say or do to make them take such a step. Their pursuit of power is stronger than rudimentary decency. By grinning and bearing it, the Republican Party backs Trump and claims at the same time that preventing Clinton from achieving the White House is more important than the billionaire’s rude behavior.

There Won’t Be Another Trump

The point is (and many reasonable Republicans forget this) that Trump’s victory enables him to nominate justices to the Supreme Court. And it has always been underlined by the Republicans that Clinton, with the help of her justices, would implement a pro-left-wing dictatorship. Would not Trump do the same? Besides, this one fact is certain: the presidency provides Trump with access to nuclear weapons. Keeping in mind Trump’s unclear bonds with Russia and his fondness for Putin, his presidency would be a catastrophe for worldwide peace, and instead would be the gift of their dreams for dictators, from Putin to Erdogan. It is not surprising that some Republican politicians associated with the military and diplomacy have appealed to the party’s leadership to stop Trump’s candidacy. All in vain.

Polish commentators who have a soft spot for Republicans and who are averse to Clinton without any reason are suggesting that if Trump were a bit more normal, he would defeat her without great effort. But he is not normal and surely will not be. Trump has been himself since the campaign’s beginning: a snooty, narcissistic racist who hates and insults everybody around who dares to oppose him. There is no other Trump. And there won’t be any. If such a different Trump appears, he will resemble our President Duda during his campaign and will disappear quickly after he wins. And it means that the world that sometimes haunts us in our nightmares may come true.

*Editor’s note: COP21 refers to the 2015 Paris Climate Conference.

**Editor’s note: The original quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.