BRUTAL: Watch Scott Bessent Obliterate Janet Yellen After She Said This About the...
Watch This GOP Senator Cook the WSJ Over the Trump-Epstein Birthday Card Hoax
That Astronomer CEO's Coldplay Concert Fiasco Just Got Worse
Coca-Cola Issues Statement After Trump Says the Company 'Agreed' to Use Cane Sugar
The Terrible Cost of 'Hipster' Socialism
WSJ Reporters Behind Epstein Smear Have Deep Ties to Clinton-Backed Russia Hoax Machine
How the Obama Admin Betrayed the American People
Sen. Cotton Leads Charge to End Birthright Citizenship for Illegal Immigrants
Trump's America First Agenda Works: Native-Born Workers See 100% of Job Gains As...
PA Republican Crushes Democrat Field in Fundraising As America First Agenda Gains Momentum
A Teen Posted TikToks to Garner Support After Her Parents’ Murders. You Won’t...
At Least 30 Injured After Driver Rams Car Into Crowd of People in...
'Onward': Heritage Foundation Founder Ed Feulner Dies, Leaves Legacy of Freedom and Faith
Is Ilhan Omar the New Standard-Bearer for Democrats?
What We Should Takeaway From DNI Gabbard’s Declassified Russia Hoax Documents
OPINION

New Hampshire Republicans Stain Their Credibility

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.

New Hampshire primary voters have long taken pride in subjecting presidential wannabes to a long and thoroughgoing scrutiny — vetting the candidates on their political stands, grilling them at innumerable town hall meetings, assessing their demeanor on the campaign trail. White House hopefuls held themselves to a high standard of civility, or they didn't win the first-in-the-nation primary.

Advertisement

By handing a victory to Donald Trump in this year's primary, New Hampshire's voters may have just blown up that long-nurtured credibility.

In previous election cycles, New Hampshire voters went (twice) for Republican John McCain, an affable and self-effacing war hero. In 2012 they backed Mitt Romney, a man so averse to bad language that his idea of swearing is a G-rated "H-E-double hockey sticks." On the other hand, when Bob Dole, asked on TV in 1988 if there was anything he wanted to say to his rival George H. W. Bush, snarled, "Tell him to stop lying about my record," his bitterness seemed to ratify New Hampshire's decision not to support him.

This time around, the winner of New Hampshire's GOP presidential primary is a vulgar and loudmouthed egomaniac, as ignorant of public affairs as he is gifted at stoking anger and xenophobia.

Trump led every poll of New Hampshire Republican voters since last summer, nearly all of them by double digits, so his first-place finish on Tuesday, with 35 percent of the vote, came as no surprise. But it was a grievous confirmation of how far the Party of Reagan has drifted from its moorings.

Granted, there are plenty of caveats. Nearly two-thirds of the vote didn't go to Trump. Under New Hampshire's open-primary rules, many of those who took a Republican ballot on Tuesday presumably weren't Republicans. And victory in the New Hampshire primary is no guarantee of eventual nomination.

Advertisement

All the same, New Hampshire voters have just given their imprimatur to a Republican candidate who embodies a crude, unfiltered, uninformed solipsism — a demagogue far removed from everything thoughtful and honorable in the Republican Party's traditions.

After losing the Iowa caucuses to Senator Ted Cruz, Trump could have moderated his ugly and reckless campaign style. Instead he doubled down, using the F-word and other lewd language at campaign rallies, exuberantly embracing the torture of terror suspects, and repeating at every turn that Iowa's results were fraudulent. New Hampshire's voters have just rewarded those grotesqueries, bestowing on Trump his first official win of the presidential season. In so doing they have stained, perhaps permanently, their reputation for electoral discernment.

Join the conversation as a VIP Member

Recommended

Trending on Townhall Videos

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement