The nation is facing challenges of historic proportions — global warming, the rise of ISIS, the struggling middle class and the flawed healthcare system, to name a few.

It is disheartening to see politicians vying for the highest office in the land arguing about the way they sweat on camera and the size of their opponents’ hands. All the major candidates on the Republican side appear amateurish and unfit to serve as president. They have not been focusing on the issues. Donald Trump, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz are loud, but their statements are empty.

The Arab American News cannot in good conscience endorse any of the GOP candidates, although in the past we have endorsed Republicans in the primary and general elections.

However, we encourage Arab American Republicans to show up to the poll on March 8 and cast their vote for their candidate of choice.

The Republican Party is moving away from its founding ideals and dangerously veering off in to bigotry. It is replacing fiscal conservatism with apathy for the poor and strong national defense with military adventurism.

Most frighteningly, the modern GOP and its leading presidential candidates are fueling and riding a wave of hatred against ethnic and religious minorities.

The leading Republican candidates are selling provocative words that inspire anger and incite violence because they lack ideas with substance.

When Trump says he wants to ban Muslims from entering the United States, it is not an applicable national security policy — it is a sound bite that led to a rise in hate crime. When Rubio answered five different questions at a debate with the same monologue about President Obama’s “evil” plans to destroy America, it is a sign of absence of real vision. Cruz’s call for bombing Iraq and Syria until the “sand glows” is not a sane strategy to defeat ISIS; it is a fraudulent show of toughness from the other side of the world.

It is unfortunate what is happening to the Republican Party because it is damaging America’s standing in the world.

Republicans have become the anti-party. They are anti-immigration, anti-Muslim, anti-affordable healthcare, anti-environment, anti-tax, anti-women, anti-gay, anti-poor. But as they reject and demonize people, they do not provide solutions to the challenges of the American people.

While Ohio Governor John Kasich seems to be the most reasonable in the Republican camp, he has not presented enough rational solutions to earn this newspaper’s support. He has also largely failed in communicating his ideas to the Republican constituents as evidenced by his poor showing in the early primaries. 

We urge Arab Americans to vote, regardless of their political affiliation. 

Your vote counts.