CREDIT: DONALD TRUMP SR. AT #FITN IN NASHUA, NH; PROMICHAEL VADON ON FLICKR (CC BY-SA 2.0)
We're only a month away from finding out who won the U.S. presidential election. We can do this.

I am so tired of writing about Donald Trump. Nov. 8 cannot come soon enough.

Instead of providing my commentary on the latest Trump scandal (of which there are many to choose from) this time around I’m going to look at the people who have stood behind him throughout these scandals. I’m talking about Trump supporters.

But when I say Trump supporters I don’t mean the millions of everyday average Americans who voted for him in the general elections and showed up to his rallies.

As it has been revealed through interviews of supporters at Trump events, some (but not all) have absolutely no idea what they are talking about when it comes to the reality of politics in the United States. Some Americans blame Obama for the attacks on 9/11, claim Hillary Clinton has a body double meant to hide a crippling chronic illness and even support Trump’s policy to ban all Muslim immigrants.

Even though I find many of the statements made by Trump and his supporters disgusting and offensive, I still find that I cannot fully blame them for thinking this way. When you are raised into a culture of hate and discrimination it’s tough to break away from it, especially when you may be struggling or feeling victimized (no matter how untrue it may be).

The people I do blame, however, are the elected Republicans who have supported him from the beginning of his presidential run and those who jumped on the Trump train once they realized he was actually going to win the Republican primary.

One of Trump’s earliest supporters was New Jersey governor Chris Christie. You could find him standing behind Trump in some of his earlier rallies with a look of disbelief on his face. I can only imagine what was going through his head at the time.

Christie has stood by Trump since the beginning, unlike primary rival and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. Though initially reluctant to vocally support the Republican nominee, Ryan eventually got on board and soon found himself having to defend his decision after every Trump scandal.

Former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin still supports Trump, bringing with her the evangelical right-wing base that so strongly supported her during her own election run.

Former mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani has made multiple disparaging comments lately about Clinton, claiming that the job of president is a “man’s job” and making his support for Trump widely known.

Many of those who ran against Trump in the primary have now retracted some of their insulting comments and now openly support him.

Some political analysts blame the media for providing Trump with millions of dollars’ worth of free advertising in the early days of the primary by extensively covering him, his rallies and his vile policy plans (“We’re going to build a wall… And we’re going to make Mexico pay for it!”).

But what support from politicians like Giuliani and Christie did was lend Trump a sense of political legitimacy that he does not deserve. By aligning themselves with him they made him seem like a genuine rival to the other primary candidates and ultimately, Clinton.

His lack of political qualifications did not disqualify him as a candidate, and no matter how many times his opponents repeat that, it just doesn’t sink in with his supporters that he is wholly unprepared to run a country. He can barely run a business, how does anyone expect him to run one of the most influential countries in the world?

Trump’s deficiencies had never been more obvious until the debate against Clinton. It was clear that her decades of working in politics paid off, and Trump appeared to struggle to keep up with her.

When it’s a one-on-one debate like we recently saw, Trump has no one else to back him up. In this situation, the winner truly stands alone. When you pull back the curtain, there really is nothing there. Trump lacks the intelligence to make substantive policy arguments as well as the humility to admit when he is wrong.

Without the backup he has depended on, whether it be from the electorate or from his more powerful political supporters, once those were taken away from him, America saw Trump for what he truly is: a phony.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.