5 Times Republicans and Media Could Have Stopped Donald Trump But Didn’t

Since his campaign announcement last June, there’s been numerous times when we’ve felt like a broken record when it comes to trying to warn Republicans and some in the cable news media about the seriousness of Donald Trump’s dangerous Presidential run.

Now after Trump’s repeated refusal to disavow the KKK, as well as documented attacks on Latinos, immigrants, and other groups at the hands of Trump’s supporters, many of them have finally caught on. But, with Trump now on track to be the GOP’s nominee, their efforts to stop him may be too little too late.

The truth is, many were complicit in the mainstreaming of Trump’s hate by not calling out his campaign from the beginning for what it really is: Hate. Here are just a few of the missed opportunities Republican leaders and many in the media had to stop Donald Trump’s campaign, but didn’t.

When Donald Trump Called Mexican Immigrants “Rapists” From The Very Start

Trump warned us from the very start he’d be running a dangerous campaign built on bigotry and xenophobia, saying that Mexico is “sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems. They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

Not only was the immediate response from Republican leaders and fellow Presidential candidates a wall of silence, but Ted Cruz actually defended Trump, saying “I like Donald Trump. I think he’s terrific, I think he’s brash, I think he speaks the truth,” during a Fox News appearance.

Some condemnation. AV’s Frank Sharry sounded the alarm that month, saying “The lowest possible bar for the Republican Party to clear should be standing up to bigotry and sticking up for the Latino community by denouncing the abjectly racist remarks from Donald Trump. Unfortunately, the GOP’s silence and, in Ted Cruz’s case, defense of Trump, is a disturbing indication that they just don’t get it. Republicans are failing in spectacular fashion to meet a very basic threshold of dignity and respect.”

HuffPo Then Tried To Mainstream Trump’s Racism As Comedy. But It Was Never Funny To Us

In July, just a few weeks after Trump accused immigrants from Mexico of being “rapists”, the Huffington Post decided to relegate coverage of Trump’s campaign to the “Entertainment” section and excuse the seriousness of his accusations about immigrants, saying that “our reason is simple: Trump’s campaign is a sideshow. We won’t take the bait. If you are interested in what The Donald has to say, you’ll find it next to our stories on the Kardashians and The Bachelorette.”

But then after months of dangerous rhetoric and positions — including a plan to put Muslim-Americans in a national database and forcibly remove 11 million undocumented immigrants from the United States — HuffPo walked back its decision, saying Trump’s campaign had “curdled and congealed into something repellent and threatening — laying bare a disturbing aspect of American politics.”

The sentiment is correct. But it should have been there from the start.

SNL Also Tried To Mainstream Trump’s Racism, All In The Name Of Ratings

After breaking ties with Trump over his bigoted statements (NBC was home to Trump’s former “Celebrity Apprentice” show), NBC invited him to host and guest star in an episode of “Saturday Night Live.”

A host of Latino and immigrant rights organizations, outraged that the network would give a national platform to Trump’s bigoted views, gathered over half a million signatures telling NBC and SNL Executive Producer Lorne Michaels that #RacismIsntFunny. But the network decided to go forward with the episode anyway.

“[Latinos] do not want to see Trump’s racism or his anti-immigration message being satirized,” AV’s Juan Escalante told The Huffington Post during the highly-publicized petition delivery. “There’s nothing funny about mass deportation. There’s nothing funny about separating families. There’s nothing funny about calling Mexicans ‘rapists’ and murderers. … It’s a very poor show of judgement and it’s completely disrespectful to Latinos and viewers across the nation.”

In the end, SNL got it’s ratings boost. But both the episode and network were widely-panned for their decision to keep him on as host.

“Having Trump host SNL is a tacit nod of approval — of his message, his antics and, yes, his campaign to be the Republican presidential nominee,” noted WaPo.

Speaking Of TV, Cable News Gave Trump Months Of Free Glowing Coverage

The fact that “Morning Joe” hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski basically became unofficial Trump surrogates certainly didn’t help stop his rise. The show’s back-rubbing treatment of the candidate hasn’t gone unnoticed, with The Week writing “Scarborough’s admiration for Trump has been described as ‘over-the-top’ and ‘unseemly,’” and “the Washington Post deeming Trump’s appearances on the show like ‘a cozy social club.’”

Media monitoring service TVEyes notes that the show “mentioned Trump’s name more frequently than any other cable show since his June 2015 announcement of candidacy — 2,414 times.”

And when the hosts sat down with Trump for a televised town hall, a hot mic allegedly captured Trump coaching the hosts on what questions should be discussed. “In town hall, MSNBC and ‘Morning Joe’ hosts let Trump skate on bigotry, racism,” a WaPo editorial seethed the next day, accusing the hosts of journalistic malpractice for failing to question Trump on his horrific positions on mass deportation, banning Muslims, and failure to condemn attacks on Latinos and immigrants at the hands of his supporters.

“Any hour-long session with Donald Trump that doesn’t ask him about those obscenities is a puff session. Allowing this fellow to pronounce on entitlement reform, strategies on the Islamic State, campaign tactics, Iraq, Jeb Bush, health-care reform, gun rights, Supreme Court nominations and other such topics without grinding through an extensive accounting of his racism and bigotry is an outrage only slightly less egregious than the candidate’s own.”

Republicans Could Have Just Passed Immigration Reform

Greg Sargent was among the first back in August to note that Republicans could have avoided this whole Donald Trump fiasco by just passing comprehensive immigration reform, which would have possibly slapped down many of Trump’s subsequent falsehoods (like claims about lack of border security).

The Senate passed a comprehensive immigration reform package (thanks, Marco) by a widely bipartisan margin in 2013, 68 to 32. The votes existed in the House for passage as well, but then-Speaker John Boehner and Republican House leadership lacked the political will to simply let the bill come to the floor for a vote, and instead gave votes to anti-immigrant legislators like Steve King.

Sargent notes “some Republicans warned at the time that the party needed to embrace reform precisely to avoid the epic slow-motion disaster that might unfold if immigration got tied up in primary politics, creating fertile conditions for a talented demagogue to pull the party further to the right. Which is exactly what is happening now.”

“If Republicans and Democrats had cooperated to invest billions in further militarizing the border, it probably would have been harder still for Trump to tell his tale, and his immigration demagoguery might not have gripped his supporters’ imagination in quite the manner we’re seeing.”