GOP Gave Us No Choice Editor, Times-Union: Choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil. The election of 2016 was determined as early as 1992, when Bill Clinton was elected by the vast minority of voters. Perot is blamed for the first President Bush’s defeat. But if he wasn’t in the race to prevent Bush from being re-elected, Bush defeated himself by breaking his promise not to raise taxes, which is what the Democrats wanted. Bush should have learned from Hoover’s mistake of doing what Democrats wanted him to do and making the bad recession 1929 into the Great Depression and known that they would turn on him. Clinton took advantage of the better economy Reagan produced and a Republican Congress that gave us a surplus to stay in office when he should have been only a one-term president and not a Democrat icon. Republicans were afraid to present a full case against Clinton when he was impeached to throw him out of office. Democrats recognized the weakness of the Republicans who feared public opposition and supported him instead of attack him. Hillary probably blames the voters in 2008 for electing Obama instead of her. But Republicans can be blamed too. Bush didn’t try hard enough to prevent the Great Recession, even though he knew the housing bubble was about to burst. She may have supported the actions that crashed the economy just like Obama did. But Republicans fielded a moderate Republican to go against a liberal and lost because Obama said lies people wanted to believe. Instead of countering Obama effectively, Republicans let him get his way. They also told the voters lies they wanted to believe and built up hopes that the destructive policies of the president would be reversed. Republicans failed the voters, which is one of the reasons why Trump became the Republican candidate that might beat Hillary in ?November. Trump is not a racist, despite the ones that are who support him. It doesn’t help that he trusts in questionable people. If ?Republicans had demonstrated some backbone and would have been a strong party against Obama, maybe a conservative Republican would have been running against Hillary because Trump would have thought there was no need for him to run and try to rescue America. If he is elected and proves to be a disaster, Republicans will be to blame because the Republican leadership opposed strong conservatives. It’s as if Washington Republicans would rather have the devil they know in the White House instead of someone they accuse of being a devil. Faulty weapons are often able to hit their targets. But they can also kill their users. I don’t want Trump to be a faulty weapon against Hillary. But Republicans didn’t give us a choice. Rick Badman Warsaw
