OPINION:
After the Indiana primary win by businessman Donald Trump, the New York Daily News declared the death of the Republican Party, eulogizing it on its snarky cover.
The Grand Old Party is no more, according to the tabloid, whose Wednesday cover features a dead elephant in a casket and reads: “Dearly beloved, we are gathered her today to mourn the GOP, a once-great political party, killed by the epidemic of Trump.”
It’s way to early to sign the death certificate of the Republican Party. It may just be revived by Mr. Trump, who has energized a group of voters neglected by the professional political class: Blue-collar, working Americans. And the Democratic presumptive nominee, Hillary Clinton, also has sky-high unfavorables — who knows who will turn out (or stay home) when her and Mr. Trump get into a head-to-head matchup.
You shouldn’t be so cocky, Daily News.
Wednesday’s is just one of several anti-Republican covers the paper has run in recent months.
Before the New York primary, the paper told Texas Sen. Ted Cruz to take the “F-U Train to get ’outta the Bronx.” After Mr. Cruz’s “New York” values flub, the paper told him to “Drop Dead,” featuring the Statue of Liberty giving him the middle finger. Mr. Trump, too, has been the target of the Daily News’s wrath, with them dressing him up as a carnival act, running the headline “Dead clown walking.”
The worst it’s done for the other side is call Hillary Clinton out for being a “fair-pay phony,” after she attended the signing of New York’s $15-minimum-wage bill, despite not supporting the effort nationally. The paper went on to endorse Mrs. Clinton, calling her a “warrior realist.”
In April, it took issue with Vermont Sen. Bernard Sanders’ gun stance, with “Bernie’s Sandy Hook shame,” plastered on its headline. But it didn’t dress him up as a clown, or flip him off — even after his disastrous interview with their editorial board.
The partisan hatchet job of Republicans marks a sad demise of a once-prominent New York paper. Founded in 1919, it was the first U.S. daily printed in tabloid format.
The only RIP needed is one for the NY Daily News.
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