Trump's indecent comments: Our view

USA TODAY

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If 2016 were a normal political year, Republicans would be well positioned to recapture the White House.

After two terms of Democratic control, voters are primed for a change, and the incumbent party is vulnerable on the core issues. Prosperity? The economy continues to grow at an anemic rate, just 1.2% in the latest quarter, and the national debt has topped $19 trillion. Peace? Attacks conducted or inspired by the Islamic State are exacting an awful toll at home and abroad.

Moreover, most voters view Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton as untrustworthy, and she has demonstrated appalling lapses in judgment, notably her extreme carelessness in handling classified data when she was secretary of State.

USA TODAY

We all regret the Khan family’s loss: Opposing view

But this is not a typical year, and the Republicans have not nominated a typical candidate. Practically every day, and sometimes more than once a day, GOP nominee Donald Trump provides fresh evidence that he lacks the knowledge and temperament for the world’s most powerful job.

Republicans undoubtedly hoped that Trump, fresh off securing the nomination in Cleveland, would pivot toward a more presidential demeanor and a more positive, inclusive message for the general election.

Instead, he followed his remarkably dark convention speech (75 minutes that can be summarized as “be very afraid, and only I can save you”) with a renewed attack on vanquished GOP primary rival Ted Cruz and a series of irresponsible statements that stand out even by Trump standards.

First there was his open invitation last week for a hostile foreign power to meddle in the U.S. election. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” he said unsmilingly at a news conference, referring to supposedly personal emails that were deleted from Clinton’s private server.

Only after an uproar did Trump contend that he was just being sarcastic, which, even if true, would reflect an alarming lack of seriousness about cybersecurity and foreign interference in American politics.

Compounding the damage, in an interview aired Sunday on ABC’s This Week, Trump seemed generally unaware of the extent of Russia’s military incursions into Ukraine — and said he’d consider recognizing Vladimir Putin’s 2014 seizure of Crimea.

Trump managed to top this with his tactless response to the Muslim American father whose son, an Army captain, died 12 years ago in the Iraq war and who charged at the Democratic convention that Trump has “sacrificed nothing and no one” for his country.

In the ABC interview, Trump suggested that the Clinton campaign might have written Khizr Khan’s speech and that Khan’s wife “maybe wasn’t allowed to have anything to say.” (Khan says he wrote the speech himself, and his wife says the pain of her loss speaks volumes.)

Trump added that he had indeed sacrificed by working very hard and creating thousands of jobs — rich stuff from a man who previously derided Sen. John McCain’s war heroism and who avoided military service himself during the Vietnam War with four student deferments and a medical deferment because of a bone spur in one of his feet.

Trump rose to his party’s nomination with appeals to bigotry and a call for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.” The more he opens his mouth, the more opportunity voters have to figure out what is going on. Perhaps it is only fitting that it took the family of a Muslim American hero to further expose the candidate’s lack of a sense of decency.

USA TODAY's editorial opinions are decided by its Editorial Board, separate from the news staff. Most editorials are coupled with an opposing view — a unique USA TODAY feature.

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