Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz, Donald Trump and John Kasich walk into a bar. Cruz and Kasich were having a party together — Trump just invited himself.
Cruz and Kasich are mad.
In fact, they’re so mad that they’re now forming an alliance to stop Trump from winning the presidential nomination. This move shows just how desperate the Republican campaigns are becoming, but we should see it as a ray of hope rather than a reason for fear.
It’s a monumental occasion when presidential candidates start willingly stepping aside in some states in order to help someone other than Trump get more votes — people are finally realizing they need to take action.
Many people say Trump supporters are fed up with how things work in politics. After years of putting up with the system, they now want things to change sooner rather than later.
However, this should energize rather than intimidate Trump’s young opponents. Youth are becoming more involved in this election and rightly so. We’re among the demographics that a new presidency would affect the most, and we need to make sure that whoever is in the Oval Office will do a good job.
That’s why it’s so important that we take a Cruz-Kasich alliance seriously.
If you’ve read my prior columns, then you probably know my feelings about Trump. To put things in perspective, some Holocaust survivors have suggested that the United States under Trump wouldn’t be so different from Nazi Germany. I don’t know about you, but that’s a pretty big red flag for me.
The man makes a lot of big promises, but he doesn’t have the experience good politicians needs to succeed. For example, Trump wants to replace the Affordable Care Act. But how would he go about doing that? As a business student, I know that having a plan is key to doing most things successfully. And as a businessman, Trump should know that, too.
Still worse for Trump is that he can’t even get Republicans to unite around him. The Cruz-Kasich alliance suggests that the tide might soon start turning against Trump even from within the Republican Party. As a result, if he becomes our president, he might need to fight with congressional Republicans as much as Democrats — and let’s remember how little presidents can do without support in Congress.
I believe the Senate and the House are more likely to pass bills by someone who held office before. That puts every other main candidate ahead of Trump.
We can’t stop the progress Trump has made so far, and the delegate gap between him as frontrunner and Cruz in second place has widened.
Yet even though the threat of his nomination is looming, Trump hasn’t won yet. There’s still hope that the Republicans will come to their senses — and a Cruz-Kasich alliance might be just the kind of cooperation that could signify good things to come in the future.
Martha Pietruszewski welcomes comments at [email protected].
