(This Trump cartoon is by Dave Granlund at davegranlund.com.)This exchange happened at a Donald Trump question and answer session with his supporters on Thursday:
TRUMP: Okay, this man, I like this guy.
UNIDENTIFIED JACKASS: (Unintelligible) We have a problem in this country. It's called Muslims. We know our current president is one. TRUMP: Right. UNIDENTIFIED JACKASS: You know he's not even an American. TRUMP: (Big smile) We need this question. This is (unintelligible). UNIDENTIFIED JACKASS: But anyway, we have training camps, growing, where they want to kill us. That's my question: when can we get rid of them? TRUMP: We're going to be looking at a lot of different things. I mean you know a lot of people are saying that and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening out there and we're going to be looking at that and plenty of other things. And on Friday, the media went crazy about it -- with many of them, and some other candidates, saying Trump should apologize for the bigotry he displayed in accepting the questioner's premise without correcting him. All I can say is don't hold your breath for a Trump apology. It won't happen.
Trump not only won't apologize -- he can't. He's a narcissist, and has never apologized for his idiocy or his bigotry. He's simply incapable of admitting he might be wrong.
But perhaps more important is the fact that an apology would cost him support (and Ted Cruz, who exhibits the same kind of bigotry, would pick up many of Trump's supporters). Just look at who Trump's supporters are. They are the angry teabaggers, who hate the president and are willing to believe anything they consider to be negative about him -- and most of them consider being a muslim to be a negative.
In fact, a recent poll showed that around 43% of Republicans believe the president is a muslim -- and many of that 43% are supporters of Donald Trump (because he has shown himself to be a "birther" and a bigot in the past -- which they love). While Trump is a despicable person, he's not a complete idiot (despite what some of us might think). He's not about to anger a substantial portion of his base with an apology -- no matter how much it is deserved.
