Calvin University's official student newspaper since 1907

Calvin University Chimes

Since 1907
Calvin University's official student newspaper since 1907

Calvin University Chimes

Calvin University's official student newspaper since 1907

Calvin University Chimes

Wake up, America!

“Make America Great Again!” I’m willing to bet that most Americans by now can word-associate that with presidential candidate Donald J. Trump. When he announced, most people thought it would be funny to see a President Trump, because we really didn’t know what it would be like. As the race goes on, and his lead in the polls and the primaries begin to grow, a sense of fear has begun to replace people’s laughter at the thought, including the GOP establishment. There is a realization that a normal candidate like Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz, or even John Kasich, will not get nominated. Even a retired neurosurgeon with little to no foreign policy experience sounds better than Trump.

Wake up, America! We cannot have a president — or a nominee — who refuses to condemn white supremacists and the Ku Klux Klan. Even if he were to condemn them now, it wouldn’t be due to a change in heart, but everything to do with peer pressure and making his campaign look better. Yet despite all these negative things that Trump says, the man seems to bulletproof — actually, scratch that — Trump is in head-to-toe explosive resistant armor, and not even an explosion of racist or sexist remarks could stop his ever-increasing popularity. I think the reason why he has been winning is due to his loyal base of 35-40 percent of the voters, who wouldn’t leave him in any situation. The problem is that the rest of Republicans can’t coalesce behind one candidate — it’s spread out between three — mostly-viable candidates. If they were to all support one candidate, this could be different. For example, if Rubio offered Kasich an important role in his candidacy in exchange for him dropping out of the race, serious momentum could build up behind Rubio as the candidate of choice. In order to derail the Trump Train, something like this needs to happen or we will have Republican nominee Donald Trump. Does that sound like the happy ending Americans deserve?

While things are intensifying for Republicans, the nomination process for Democrats is slowing down. While #FeeltheBern supporters would like to think Bernie still has a shot, the nomination seems more and more distant for him, as shown by the nomination process. Super Tuesday was a hard loss for Sanders, even though he won Oklahoma unexpectedly. Clinton’s margin of delegates is steadily increasing above Sanders. She has 1,052 delegates to Sanders’ 427, including the superdelegates, who get to choose which candidate to support, independent of the will of the voters. The possibility of a Sanders nomination is getting more and more distant, and as the primaries scheduled for March 5 and 8 happen, this will probably become more clear. Over the next two weeks, it will become clear what will happen with the election. Will Clinton continue on her projected path to victory? Will Trump continue dominating, or will the Republicans work to stop the insanity? The next two weeks will show big things regarding these questions.

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