The editorial boards of the Washington Post and the Boston Globe both penned condemnations of Donald Trump this week, urging the Republican Party to reject him.
On Tuesday, the Boston Globe published a scathing editorial titled “Massachusetts voters must stop Donald Trump.” The authors wrote that “stopping Donald Trump is imperative — and not just for his fellow Republicans.”
And on Thursday, after Trump’s resounding victory in the Nevada caucuses, the editors of the Washington Post followed suit. Under the headline “GOP leaders, you must do everything in your power to stop Trump,” the paper’s editors exhorted the Republican Party to repudiate the man who is increasingly likely to be their nominee in November.
“GOP leaders, you must do everything in your power to stop Trump,” the editors warned, cautioning party leadership against warming to Trump for the chance at the White House.
“History will not look kindly on GOP leaders who fail to do everything in their power to prevent a bullying demagogue from becoming their standard-bearer,” they wrote. “The unthinkable is starting to look like the inevitable.”
In the Globe editorial, the authors called on unenrolled voters, who are able to participate the Republican primary, to back Ohio Gov. John Kasich, whom the Globe has endorsed. They also criticized Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson for being “right wing,” and knocked Florida Sen. Marco Rubio for a lack of experience.
The left-leaning editorial board noted that since the Bay State awards delegates proportionally, not winner-take-all, a vote for a non-Trump candidate won’t be wasted.
The Globe editors also cautioned Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters and officials against strategically rooting for Trump with the assumption he would be easily defeated in a general election, warning, “That’s playing with fire. Just remember how few pundits believed Trump would ever make it this far.”
“The best way to stop Trump is to stop Trump now,” they wrote. “But as the race turns to Massachusetts, the answer to John F. Kennedy’s question — ‘ask what you can do for your country’ — has rarely been clearer: unenrolled voters should pull a Republican ballot and vote for John Kasich because it’s a vote against Donald Trump.”
Massachusetts voters will weigh in March 1, as one of the “Super Tuesday” primary states. The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment on the Globe editorial.
