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WaPo oped: the many similarities between Trump, Cruzio, and Rubio
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/surprise--trump-cruz-and-rubio-arent-all-that-different/2016/02/25/966954fe-dbfd-11e5-891a-4ed04f4213e8_story.htmlfrom the concluding paragraphs:
When it comes to human rights, Trump, Rubio and Cruz seem to be jockeying for who can commit more war crimes. Trump wants to bring back waterboarding, plus “a hell of a lot worse”; Cruz wants to “carpet bomb” parts of the Middle East until we learn whether “sand can glow in the dark”; and Rubio repeatedly declines to answer questions about using torture, not because he finds torture morally abhorrent but because he doesn’t want to give away his interrogation strategy to terrorists. On Syrian refugees, Trump said he’d let in none at all (and later, no Muslim immigrants of any kind). Rubio also eventually agreed that we should accept none at all, while Cruz said Christians only. You say potato, I say po-tah-to.
All three do not accept the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change, contra the views of most Americans. All three want fewer gun-control measures, contra the views of most Americans. All three want to reverse nationwide same-sex marriage, contra the views of most Americans. Have you noticed a pattern yet? On policy matters, there just ain’t much daylight between Trump and the supposed mainstream alternatives. They’re all pretty far to the right.
You could argue that the others have shifted their original positions rightward to pitch-match Trump’s belches of outrageousness. (Cruz only recently endorsed mass deportation, for example.) But regardless of where on the ideological spectrum the candidates started, the fact remains that today the three of them are largely indistinguishable from one another on most major policy stances.
What differentiates Trump from the others is not substance, but salesmanship. . .
If the Republican establishment doesn’t want to line up behind Trump, perhaps it’s not because he’s thwarting their most cherished principles or committing some ideological heresy. Maybe he’s just too good at hogging the limelight.
All three do not accept the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change, contra the views of most Americans. All three want fewer gun-control measures, contra the views of most Americans. All three want to reverse nationwide same-sex marriage, contra the views of most Americans. Have you noticed a pattern yet? On policy matters, there just ain’t much daylight between Trump and the supposed mainstream alternatives. They’re all pretty far to the right.
You could argue that the others have shifted their original positions rightward to pitch-match Trump’s belches of outrageousness. (Cruz only recently endorsed mass deportation, for example.) But regardless of where on the ideological spectrum the candidates started, the fact remains that today the three of them are largely indistinguishable from one another on most major policy stances.
What differentiates Trump from the others is not substance, but salesmanship. . .
If the Republican establishment doesn’t want to line up behind Trump, perhaps it’s not because he’s thwarting their most cherished principles or committing some ideological heresy. Maybe he’s just too good at hogging the limelight.
