Donald Trump's Self-Inflicted Wounds

This time I think the Donald has really done it. He’s committed other serious gaffes and his poll numbers have gone up. Now I think his unfavorables among women (between 70-73% among all women and high even among Republican women) are going to keep him from being elected president and may doom his prospects for becoming the Republican nominee for president. His poll numbers are below Ted Cruz’s for Wisconsin’s primary tomorrow (Tuesday, 4/5/16).

For me it started with Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, grabbing a Breitbart reporter by the arm. Lewandowski was charged with battery. Trump denied the charge and blamed the Breitbart reporter for touching him, the Donald. His campaign manager suggested that the female reporter was “delusional” and claimed he’d never met her. He might not have met her but he did grab her, as the video of the incident clearly shows. Trump said the bruises on the reporter’s arm could have happened later and may not have been a result of Lewandowski’s grab. A Washington Post reporter, Ben Terris, vouched for the ex-Breitbart reporter’s claims, saying Lewandowski did grab her.

Breitbart is a far right news organization that supports Trump. That may be why Michelle Fields, the reporter who was grabbed, and two or three other Breitbart reporters resigned after the alleged battery by Lewandowski.

Lewandowski also grabbed a male protester from behind. That video even more clearly showed that Lewandowski was the aggressor.

In an interview with Chris Matthews, Trump said that if abortion were illegal, that a woman who had one should be punished.

Even the pro-lifers were outraged by that remark. Finally, pro-choice supporters and pro-lifers had something to agree on. Women who have abortions should not be punished, whether abortion is legal or not.

So Trump walked the comment back. He said that physicians who perform abortions should be punished.

It’s strange that Trump has never given such a serious issue as abortion any serious thought. He clearly hasn’t, or he wouldn’t be all over the map on such an important issue.

On policy in general, including foreign policy, he’s paper thin on substance. It’s scary how little he’s thought through the issues he needs to have a substantive background on to be qualified to be president.

He claims he "[hasn’t] been treated fairly" and may run on an independent third-party ticket if he doesn't secure the Republican nomination, but he’s clearly his own worst enemy. The Republican National Committee can't do as much to stop him as he can do and has done to stop himself.

A recent political cartoon pictured an angry GOP elephant scolding Donald Trump thusly, “How dare you say what the Republican Party actually thinks?”

It's one thing to be sexist, racist, and xenophobic. It's another to say it out loud and proud. I don’t think the Trump apple has fallen very far from the GOP tree. He would do well, however, to brush up on the finer points of where the pro-life movement stands now that he’s no longer pro-choice.