Good news for those who are trying to stop current GOP Donald Trump from getting the Republican nomination. They are receiving help from an unlikely source—Donald Trump. The erratic candidate has just inflicted the most serious wound on himself yet in the brief but gripping history of his campaign.

 

If you haven’t heard, Trump was in Wisconsin where there will be a primary next Tuesday.  Wisconsin is a progressive state, right up there with Massachusetts and Oregon.  Ripon, Wisconsin is the birthplace of liberal Republicans.  If there’s anywhere as a Republican candidate that you’re not going to say something off-the wall and right-wing, it is in Wisconsin.

 

That said, Wisconsin is also the state where former Republican presidential candidate, Scott Walker, is Governor.  He has an 80% plus favorable rating in the state.

And he doesn’t like Trump.  He has endorsed Trump’s closest, and toughest opponent, Ted Cruz.  Again, if there’s a state where Trump should have been minding his ‘p’s and q’s, it is in Wisconsin.

 

But, Trump chose Wisconsin to mess up. Under the grilling of MSNBC veteran politico and Mike Wallace-style journalist Chris Matthews, Trump revealed that there is even less to his policy positions than meets the eye.

 

In the end, according to CNN, Trump took three positions on abortion in three hours.  Matthews pressed him twelve times to stop evading and take a stand on whether, assuming abortion is outlawed, there should be a penalty… and on whom.

 

Trump said there should be “some form of punishment.”  Matthews pressed. Should the punishment apply to the woman?  Trump said, “Yes.”

 

Trump has been boasting for weeks that he’s drawing support from all quarters of the electorate, and this comment certainly proved he can provoke all quarters.  He was hit first, and hardest, by conservative, pro-life groups who have never, ever, in their history proposed punishing women for an abortion.

 

Democratic candidates also weighed in.

 

Vermont’s Senator Bernie Sanders said he was tired of wondering out loud what universe Trump is living in. Clinton quoted Maya Angelou “When someone shows you who they are believe them the first time.”

 

What Trump showed us is that he’s playing at being President.  Trump has been the untouchable candidate.  He could say anything, no matter how outrageous, and his polling points would go up rather than fall.   His secret—an open one—is that he has perfectly mirrored his supporters’ feelings.  “Trump says what I think,” is a statement commonly heard by pollsters.

 

All along his supporters have assumed that, because he’s said the outrageous things they were thinking (Mexican immigrants are criminals, we should build a wall, Muslims should be banned from entering America, etc.) and stood by his comments, that he was authentic—one of them.

 

But, Trump’s assertion that women should be punished for an abortion revealed how shallow his knowledge is of pro-life positions, and of his supporters’ deepest convictions. He quickly modified his ‘punish them’ decree (in the absence of his campaign manager and chief strategist who is under arrest for assaulting a woman reporter) to  “This issue is unclear and should be put back into the states for determination.”

 

Another hour passed and Trump issued his third position in three hours, one that conforms with pro-life groups who he had just egregiously offended, saying, “the doctor or any other person performing this illegal act upon a woman would be held legally responsible, not the woman.“

 

Before he made such a stupid comment, Trump was is in deep trouble with women voters.  During the holiest days of the Christian community (Easter), Trump and Cruz had exchanged unseemly barbs over each other’s wives, while a spontaneous alliance of female commentators issued a joint letter saying Trump should fire his campaign manager for assaulting a woman reporter.

 

Trump, who has had three wives and a reality show based on firing people for poor performance, shot back that he stands by his campaign manager.  Cruz and Ohio’s Gov. John Kasich did not stand by Trump.  They have conservative pro-life positions, and unlike Trump, have held them for years, and acted on them.  Kasich, for instance, as a Congressman, voted to restrict abortion and to make it a federal crime to transport a minor across state lines for an abortion.

 

Cruz is committed to appointing Supreme Court Judges who would overturn Roe vs. Wade, the decision that decriminalized abortions.  Both Cruz and Kasich, however, focused on what the real story is here, namely that Trump winged it still again. Trump’s ad hoc answer is clear evidence (at long last)  that he echoes what he’s been told his supporters want to hear, but has no personal knowledge of (nor has he even devoted thought to) the issues.

 

Having little knowledge about the moral positions, pro and con, on abortion is one thing.  But Trump has shown (to no harm with his supporters), that he did not even know the U.S. has a triad nuclear defense policy.  Just before the Brussels terror attacks, Trump called for lessening our commitment to NATO, the bulwark of our defense in Europe against Russia’s aggression.  NATO has also been a key element the world over in our defense against terrorism.

 

 

 

Trump has retreated before when he’s taken an issue that, to his surprise, offended so wide a swatch of the public that it threatened to tank his campaign. This time, Trump offended the GOP’s most vociferous political base.  He has been the only person who could hurt himself.  It makes you wonder if Trump knows that he’s not up to the job, and has a subconscious wish to fail. If he does, he seems to be working harder than ever on making that wish come true.