LA Times: Trump isn’t fit to be president

The Los Angeles Times is saying Republican front-runner Donald Trump is “not fit” to be president.

In an editorial published Wednesday, the paper’s editorial board said that although others have called Trump unfit for the White House, voters aren’t listening.

{mosads}”Much of the Republican base has taken leave of its senses, a flight blamed alternately on inchoate anger, disgust with inside-the-Beltway candidates and misplaced affection for a plain-speaking cartoon character who often seems to utter whatever nonsense comes into his head,” the editorial said.

The editorial hit Trump over his lack of experience in government and lack of knowledge about issues facing the country. It also criticized the front-runner for his temperament.

“He is a racist and a bully, a demagogue,” it said.

“He has proposed killing the families of terrorists, a violation of international law so blatant that a former CIA director predicted that U.S. troops would refuse to carry out such an order,” it said.

The candidate has in the past mocked a disabled reporter at a campaign rally and has called to reinstate forms of torture worse than waterboarding, it said. The editorial also brought up Trump’s immigration policies and his plans to “open up libel laws.”

Trump often “says nothing at all,” the editorial says, slamming the candidate for making only vague promises such as replacing ObamaCare with “something great,” but giving no details.

“It isn’t easy to tell how much of Trump’s performance is merely shtick and how much is real,” the editorial said.

“We hope we won’t have to learn who the real Donald J. Trump might be,” it continued.

The editorial board members also criticized Trump’s rivals, saying they disagree with them on many policies including healthcare and environmental protection. It noted his rivals have started to sink to Trump’s level as a campaigner.

“Nevertheless, those candidates are more rational, knowledgeable, understandable and predictable — all of which are necessary (albeit not sufficient) qualities in the Oval Office,” it said.

“Trump’s blustery temperament and authoritarian notion of the presidency are unique in the field and uniquely disqualifying.”

It said Trump’s popularity may have stemmed from the “polarized two-party system and nihilistic tactics on the campaign trail and Capitol Hill” — but a Trump presidency is not the answer. 

“He’s just a cynical manipulator playing on the very real frustrations of voters tired of a government that takes big, difficult problems and makes them intractable,” the editorial said.

“Those voters still have time to choose a better standard-bearer.”