Reader questions Trump’s motives

To the editor:

After supporting liberal Democrat politicians and sharing a friendship with Bill and Hillary Clinton for decades, why did Donald Trump decide to run for the Republican party nomination for president? Why did he initially refuse to pledge that if he lost the Republican nomination he would not run as a third-party candidate, attack Jeb Bush and declare that after he is elected he will build a fence along our southern border and make Mexico pay for it? Why at his campaign rallies has he attacked Republican rivals and said inflammatory things that have invited reporters to devote almost all of their time to him and ignore other Republican candidates?

He has denigrated almost all of his competitors and angered Latin Americans, Mexicans and Muslims. Although almost all polls show Trump to be leading, a statistical analysis of all reported polls revealed in the New York Times found that his strongest supporters are registered Democrats who rarely vote in general elections.

Republican stalwart Karl Rove reported that a Quinnipiac poll found 60 percent of Independents, 89 percent of Latin Americans and 87 percent of blacks polled disliked Trump. Therefore, Rove wrote in the Wall Street Journal 'Donald Trump would be the dream opponent for the Democrat Party.” Do you think that his conduct has been accidental or deliberate? We must not allow Trump to become the Republican nominee for president.

J. Fred Doornbos

Iowa City