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Read: Trump’s Kids Can’t Vote for Him in New York Because They Screwed Up
On Tuesday, the paper that most of America probably knows for giving birth to Sex and the City joined the National Enquirer as the only prominent publications to openly endorse Donald Trump. The New York Observer declared its allegiance to Trump in a long editorial that declares in its first line that its endorsement has nothing, nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that publisher and owner Jared Kushner happens to be married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka.
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The Observer—famous in New York media circles mostly thanks to the late influential editor Peter Kaplan—has been vaguely in Trump’s camp for a while. Its editorial staff has helped Trump with speeches in the past, though when that came to light it vowed not to give the billionaire’s campaign any more “input.” It also recently ran an op-ed from a professor running through hypothetical scenarios where terrorists would have to be tortured a la 24, Muslims would be “preemptively” spied on a la Minority Report, and immigration would be restricted due to fears of “Islamic terrorists.” “Maybe Donald Trump has a point” was that article’s subtitle.
But the endorsement makes the Observer‘s support clear, and positively gushes over Trump. “Throughout his career, Donald Trump has demonstrated real leadership,” it says, citing his “great skyscrapers and gem-like skating rinks” and the jobs such projects produced while dismissing the failures (and the resulting lawsuits) of “Trump University, Atlantic City casinos, Trump Airlines and branded products such as vodka and steaks.”
The Observer thinks it doesn’t matter Trump only has vague half-ideas on policy, writing that making America great “depends not on 14-point proposals or an SAT-like cramming of policy details. It depends on faith and leadership.” It also criticizes the Republican establishment: “instead of monomaniacally focusing on tearing him down, those who care about the future of the party should reach out to Mr. Trump and help him grow as a candidate and a leader.”
Trump is expected to win the primary in New York state, but beyond that, he is fantastically unpopular. The Observer is unconcerned with numbers, though—it has Trump fever, however the paper contracted it. By the end of the endorsement the Reagan comparison are flowing more freely than Trump Wine:
“In 1980 Ronald Reagan said, ‘The time is now for strong leadership,’ and by 1984 was able to declare, ‘It is morning again in America.’ Today, Donald Trump says it is time to make America great again. We agree.”
