Republicans Are Not Defined by Trump

Andrew Rosenthal, Op-Ed columnist for the New York Times and graduate of the University of Denver, attempts to generalize Trump’s recent actions and beliefs to all Republicans in his piece “Why Republicans Won’t Renounce Trump”. He argues that Republicans refuse to renounce Trump because they secretly support his actions. This sweeping generalization is presumptuous and lacks definitive evidence to support such a claim. However, Rosenthal does provide evidence of Trump’s bigotry. He simply fails to make a distinct connection between Trump’s racist comments, deplorable actions, and skewed morals to the Republican Party as a whole. In forming these claims, he has addressed potential supporters of the Republican Party and swayed their opinions. At the same time, he intends on a broad audience of the general public to read his piece, in order to gather support on his opinions.
Referencing Donald Trump’s attack on a federal judge, whose parents were born in Mexico, Rosenthal claims that Republican leaders only “pretended they disapproved”. Yet, he provides no evidence whatsoever to back this severe accusation. He attempts to shade Republicans in a bad light straight off the bat, setting up the subsequent fallacies within his argument. He continues explaining that Republicans have “been deliberately” creating a party of “division and intolerance”, referencing George W. Bush’s “racist tactics” against Michael Dukakis. While he has his facts in order this time, they are irrelevant to his central argument. This does nothing to prove that Republicans are inherently racist, and therefore have some "secret or corrupt" agenda in promoting Trump. 

Further on, Rosenthal summarizes what are in my opinion, the low points of the Republican Party, such as their hesitation in reforming immigration. From this, he creates a slippery slope in which Republicans supposedly want to “deport…Mexicans” and “ban Muslims”, but hide this fact by refusing to talk about it in the open. Rosenthal uses this to lead into his argument that Republicans only disapprove of Trump’s “bad tactics” in attacking Mexicans and Muslims, but not the sentiment behind it. He goes as far as to call Republicans’ appalled reaction to Trump’s action “nonsense”, implying that it is all an act. Again, he has no evidence backing this claim.

Rosenthal attempts to substantiate his argument with examples of government officials admitting to Trump’s bigotry, but still refusing to renounce him. However, this does not qualify the claim that the Republican’s hold all the same ideals and morals as Trump. It simply implies that they see enough reason to endorse him despite his behavior. This being said, I don’t disagree that Trump’s actions and comments are inexcusable and entirely disgraceful; I simply can’t find validity in Rosenthal’s claims against the Republican Party as a whole.