WASHINGTON (AP) – Ask Americans about bad manners in the 2016 presidential campaign and the conversation shifts immediately to Donald Trump, the GOP front-runner who has branded his critics, “little,” ”lyin,” ”low-energy” and worse.
“I don’t recall anyone stirring up as much of a fuss as Mr. Trump,” says Sidney Waldman, 81, a retired book store owner in Key West, Florida. “He just does not need to say things the way he says them. It may get attention now, but he is going to be remembered in a negative way.”
“He’s a bully,” says Kellie Zangrillo, 53, of Auburn, Washington, like Waldman an independent. Trump not only may have set the tone in the campaign, she suggested, but his nasty words could have real consequences if uttered as president. “I think he’d get us into World War III.”
When it comes to rudeness in 2016 politics, the Republican presidential contest wins in a landslide, a new poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research has found. The survey shows that 78 percent of Americans, including most Republicans, see the GOP race as discourteous. Only about half as many – 41 percent – say the same about the Democratic campaign.
Eight in 10 people say remarks about race or gender and sexuality are unacceptable in public places, and that political leaders should be held to a higher standard of behavior than other people.