And we thought our political debates were dire ……

Republicans at War: Mitt Romney calls Donald Trump ‘a fraud’ and a misogynist
Fr. Seán McDonagh
On Sunday March 28th 2016, my book ‘On Care for our Common Home, Laudato Si’ published by Orbis Books, was launched at Maryknoll, New York. Almost 200 people attended the event. There are two sections to the book: Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’ and, in part 1, my commentary on the ecological themes which he addressed in the encyclical.
On the following day I travelled by train from New York to Washington. As the train traveled south, I recalled my first train trip from New York to Washington forty four years ago in 1972. I was heading to Washington to study Anthropology at the Catholic University of American and Linguistics in Georgetown University. It was quieter time politically in the US, though latter things would become difficult for President Nixon.
On my journey to Washington I was reading The New York Times and The Washington Post which are full of the internecine strife within the Republican Party on how to stop the candidacy of Donald Trump. During a debate on Fox News in August 2015, Trump was annoyed by Ms. Kelly’s question about his treatment of women, especially some insulting remarks he had made in the past. After the debate Trump seemed to suggest that Ms. Kelly was menstruating at the time and shouldn’t be taken seriously.
Though Trump employs many foreign workers in his hotels, he has played into the conservative prejudices on illegal migrant. Trump declares that he will build a wall on the U.S. Mexican border and that he will make Mexico pay for the wall. Naturally, Mexican officials such as Luis Lidegaray, the Treasury secretary ‘emphatically and categorically’ denies that Mexico will pay for Donald Trump’s proposed wall. Former Mexican presidents Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón had already derided the idea and compared Trump to Adolf Hitler. In 2015, Trump further annoyed Mexicans by claiming that they bring crime and drugs to the US and are “rapists”. Donald Trump also offended Muslims, by threatening not to let them enter the U.S. if he is president. In reality, Trump seems to have tapped into the deep-seat anger among Republican voters much of which is directly at sitting politicians. The mantra is: you cannot trust politicians. They will promise you the stars, but do little to promote conservative causes.
The Republicans’ nightmare increased dramatically on the following day Super Tuesday (March 1st 2016) when many Republican voters opted for Trump. Now the hierarchy of the Republican Party is scared that, if Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination, this will hand an easy win for Ms. Hilary Clinton in the general election in November 2016. Furthermore, and this is what they are really upsets the Republicans is that they could lose the Senate because their supporters will not turn out on mass to elect Republican candidates.
On Thursday, March 3rd 2016, Mitt Romney, former Republican candidate in the 2012 election, called Donald Trump a phoney and a fraud in a hard hitting talk delivered at the University of Utah. Romney believes that Trump is “playing the members of the American public for suckers. He gets a free ride to the White House and all we get is a lousy hat.” He continued, “think of Donald Trump’s personal qualities, the bullying, the greed, the showing off, the misogyny, the absurd third grade theatrics … now imaging you children and your grandchildren acting the way he does. Will you welcome that?” Romney also called attention to Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns and his initial reluctance to disavow an endorsement from David Duke the former leader of the Ku Klux Klan white supremacist groups.
Romney believes Donald Trump’s economic policy would sink the U.S. into a prolonged recession and his foreign policy would endanger U.S. security. In a public letter, 95 Republican national security experts declared themselves “united in opposition to a Donald Trump presidency.”
Romney wondered “what ever happened to Trump Airlines? How about Trump University? Where are Trump, Magazine, Trump Vodka, Trump Steaks and Trump Mortgage?
John Kasich, the Governor of Ohio and also a candidate for the Republican nomination, is fearful that Romney’s personal attacks on Donald Trump will backfire. “I just don’t want to go and talk about the size of his hands, or what kind of tan he has. That is not the way to get this done.”