I’ve been trying to ignore Donald Trump and just hope he will go away. You can’t just keep making the offensive comments he’s made and remain in the race for the Republican nomination for President, can you?

To recap a few of his worst statements:

Trump on why Senator John McCain is not a war hero for his service in the Vietnam conflict:

“He’s not a war hero. He’s not a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”

Trump on Carly Fiorina’s appearance:

“Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!”

Trump on how FOX News personality Megyn Kelly challenged him during the first Republican debate because she was menstruating:

“You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.”

Trump’s immigration plan, which involves building a wall all along our Southern border,  deporting 11 million undocumented people, including deporting American citizens if their parents are illegal, and removing citizenship to people who are born in the US if their parents do not have citizenship (which requires amending the US Constitution):

Because our leaders are stupid, our politicians are stupid, and the Mexican government is much smarter, much sharper, much more cunning, and they send the bad ones over because they don’t want to pay for them, they don’t want to take care of them. Why should they when the stupid leaders of the United States will do it for them? And that’s what’s happening whether you like it or not.

“They are bringing drugs. They are bringing crime. They’re rapists, some, I assume, are good people.”

Trump, when asked this question at an event in New Hampshire, “We have a problem in this country. It’s called Muslims. We know our current president is one. You know he’s not even an American…..when will you get rid of them” the response was:

“right” and then “we’re going to be looking at a lot of different things….“

This is a small list of his offensive comments. He’s rude and boorish. He’s racist. He’s xenophobic. He’s sexist. His plans for our country are so fantastical as to be delusional.

And yet he is rising in the polls. When he makes comments that should invoke gasps of horror, he is met, instead, with cheers and applause.

A friend shared this image on Facebook. Is this what Trump is up to?

I want to ignore Trump, but I’m beginning to feel as if our silence about the offensiveness of his comments makes us complicit. This man is dangerous. He does not represent the ideals that make our nation a “city on a hill”. He has no plans to lead, only to grandstand and seek fame.
Political tradition says he will fade off into the files of history. We can no longer trust that will be the case. In addition to his solidly rising poll numbers, he seems to be setting the debate and leading the other candidates to emulate him in order to raise their own chances in the polls.

He claims he’s running for President to make our country great again. I shudder to think how that would look.

Our nation is too great for his worldview of sexism, nativism, and nonsense.