I’ve seen people saying that in a choice between Trump and Hillary, Hillary is the better choice. This just flabbergasts me – for all that Trump has done, he’s not as bad as Hillary. Hillary has deliberately lied again and again throughout her public life. I’m not talking about the exaggerations and evasions common to politics – I’m talking about deliberately lying to the American people about what she has said and done. The latest outrage, in my view, is the way she’s claiming that the families of the Benghazi dead are lying about what she said! This is getting very far into the theater of the absurd – and she just keeps going down it. Like Trump, Hillary is incapable of admitting error…but so far Trump’s enormities haven’t lead to the catastrophe which has been Hillary Clinton actions. I can well believe that Trump will wind up as disastrous as Hillary…but to say he’s now, today, worse than Hillary is just silly.
For those casting blame for the rise of Trump I do suggest you check one, last place before finishing: the mirror. It is all of us Conservatives who have failed, to one degree or another. Sure, some are far more culpable than others, but each of us had a duty – if we wish to engage in politics, at all – in making our movement palatable to the widest possible cross-section of Americans. If the GOP primary electorate was even 15% African-American, then Trump simply would not have been able to get as far as he did. Whatever happens in November – the Election of Generalissimo Trump or the Coronation of Her Imperial Majesty Hillary I – we Conservatives need to think long and hard about how we get more people into our movement.
Watch what people do, not what they say. People are saying that Trump is a massive electoral defeat waiting to happen…but if that were the case, then President Obama wouldn’t be turning up the heat to save Hillary (and his legacy) from Trump.
Is the fate of the GOP in the hands of Kasich?
Secretary of State Kerry, once again Johnny-on-the-spot, has declared that ISIS is committing genocide against Christians and other non-Muslims. Only a liberal, American government would take more than two days to figure this out…and only a liberal, American government would only make the move when forced to by outraged public opinion.
John McCain is in trouble in Arizona – only leads his challenger by 1 percentage point. Question: will McCain seek some anti-Establishment street cred by endorsing “whacko bird” Cruz? Alternately, will McCain toss over the GOP in order to save his own political skin and try to force a vote on Obama’s SCOTUS nominee?
GOP Establishment increasingly shows itself willing to rally around Trump – meanwhile, the True Cons grow ever more dismayed by him. So, we might have Everyone But Conservatives for Trump…this year will be strange.
Hey, remember Islamist terrorism? It’s still a thing.
Instead of appointing a Harvard or Yale lawyer to the Supreme Court, why not someone who lives in the real world?
In contested conventions, the guy who starts with the most votes usually doesn’t win it. Reason: If you can’t snag a first-ballot majority, it indicates a firm level of dislike for your candidacy. Those who vote against you the first time tend to dig in their heels and cast about for any reasonable alternative. We’ll see if this comes out like that if the GOP convention is contested.
Blogs For Victory 
Trump says plenty of things that are obviously not true, especially when he starts talking about foreign policy. He’s going to make Mexico pay to build a wall? I’ll give you that I’m not sure that he’s lying per se, but is that really how we’re picking our presidents now? He’s more okay because he might be actually delusional so he’s not technically lying?
I’d also argue that Trump getting elected would be catastrophic for anybody who wants the Republican party to run on a platform other than xenophobia in the near future.
The Republican party has been dancing on an ever-shrinking platform since Nixon and the Southern Strategy. They’ve needed to speak to the racists that they brought over from the Democratic party without being overtly so overtly racist that they would scare people away whose vote they’d get for other reasons. Back in Nixon’s day that was pretty easy; society was generally more racist so even people who wouldn’t vote based for a platform of pure racism were still less likely to see it as a dealbreaker.
As time has gone on and race relations evolved, it got to be a harder balance to strike. And I’d have thought that would eventually be the end of it. I figured eventually we’d mostly run out of racists, and the Republican party would have to find their votes somewhere else. But it turns out between politicians subtly encouraging racism and while passing policy pushing factories to close and move to Mexico or China, racism is back in style. Apparently so much so that Trump can have seemingly no platform at all besides hating outsiders and be the frontrunner in the Republican party.
And the Republican party, being the opportunistic political organ that it is, is coming to terms with Trump possibly being the nominee and trying to work out what they need to do to make him president. And if it works, what kind of candidate do you think you’re going to get next time? Between overt racism being proven as a viable political strategy and the other major narrative from Republicans that government (and therefore government officials) is always evil, you’re probably going to get another outsider who has very little to say that doesn’t involve race politics. Your only real chance to have a reasonable candidate will be if multiple racist outsiders run and split primary votes.
But you won’t have to wait until Trump is out of office to watch the fun start. Two years from now there is a whole house of representatives and a spike of republican senate seats up for re-election. The racist constituency will stop being the uncomfortable part of the Republican coalition that the Republican party has had to accept into their fold to win and start being the core of their voting bloc.
I personally don’t think it would make it that far, because Trump would perform his job so catastrophically badly and that his skin is so thin that it’d be surprised if it weren’t obvious that he’s a political dead end (if he hasn’t gone full Palin and quit the job by then) by the time he’s 2 years into his hypothetical term, but that might be me being overly optimistic, and in any case, the fact that you seem to think Hillary would be worse for the country than he is seems to imply you at least don’t think that would happen.
Tryvasty,
I find myself strangely agreeing with much of what you said. Yesterday in the letters to the editor column of our local morning newspaper was a letter from a self-described Liberal. He was lamenting the fact that the GOP is imploding because compromise by the GOP Establishment since WW2 has been what has enabled Progressives to push an agenda that probably couldn’t have been shoved down Americans’ throats otherwise. I’m not making that up. The Left needs compromise with someone slightly less Left to make their agenda palatable. I had to read it twice to make sure it wasn’t satire. But he’s absolutely right. Depending on how this election turns out, the GOP could go the way of its predecessor, the Whigs, in very short order. There almost has to be some kind of upheaval if that were to happen, some kind of reset. That massive a political realignment just isn’t likely to occur in a peaceful and orderly fashion, IMHO.
Spook, I think we are at a tipping point right now at this point in our history, regarding our ability to recognize that our political picture is now one of actual overt Socialism or serious considered allegiance to Constitutional governance.
I was so happy to see Ted Cruz rising in the estimation of so many Republicans because of his very adamant stance that the only functional blueprint for governing this country is its own Constitution. I thought this indicated a turning point, a growing realization that the drift (which has turned into a lurch which is developing into a rapidly accelerating death spiral) to the Left is harming this nation in every possible way. I saw the upcoming election cycle as a clearly defined battle between the Hard Left and the Constitutional Right.
The last thing I expected was a sneak attack by someone masquerading as a Republican, muddying the waters, offering a pseudo-conservative menu of superficially appealing platitudes and splintering what should have been, and what I think would have been, the first clearly defined Republican position in decades. The siphoning off of votes that would have gone to the Constitutional position is what may sound the death knell for the Conservative Movement, as it is resulting in divisiveness and anger and resentment within the movement at those who are weakening it and an inexorable shift to the Left that is dragging so many erstwhile conservatives with it.
We can understand how the insistence of Rubio, Carson and Kasich on staying in the race and siphoning votes away from Cruz may hand the nomination to Trump, but I contend that Trump himself represents the exact same phenomenon, in siphoning votes away from conservatism to a very thinly disguised Progressivism.
I think that if this succeeds, if Trump either wins the nomination or his followers rebel against a Cruz nomination and either attack him or refuse to vote, the nation will have tipped over that point where a major shift could have occurred peacefully and in an orderly way. I’m not saying it would necessarily mark the end of conservatism—IF a Trump nomination were to result in an election victory for Trump AND for Republican Senate and House candidates, it is theoretically possible that a strong Republican Congress could rein in Trump’s efforts to out-Obama Obama and rule like a king from the White House, and could put enough pressure on him to get something accomplished. But if he is elected, and is unchecked in his bizarre egomaniacal determination to “run” this country as if it is is one of his (hopefully more successful) companies, we will as a nation probably be beyond the point of simple voter correction.
BTW, the same thing is true of a President Clinton. If we have a strong enough Congress, even Queen Hillary can be thwarted in her own quest to out-Obama Obama.
I don’t agree that the GOP has been the party of racism. Yes, I know that is the Conventional Wisdom as spouted by the Complicit Agenda Media and the Left (sorry for the redundancy there) but the facts on the ground refute that claim. Basically, minorities who have been elected as Republicans have been elected AS Republicans, not AS minorities, while in the Democrat Party it is the skin color that defines its minority office holders and is responsible for their positions. In other words, a black Republican office holder has tended to run as a Republican, who also happens to be black (or Latino or Asian or even female) while a Democrat office holder is much more likely to have run as a black person, or a Latino person, or a woman, who happens to be a Democrat.
So while the GOP has to address racism, it has to address the PERCEPTION of racism, and the propaganda spread so relentlessly, and so effectively, by the true racist party in this country, not an actual situation in which the party has discriminated based on race.
I think one way to address this is to not address it directly but instead to go after the whole Identity Politics meme. We are constantly hearing that “it’s time to have a woman in the White House”. We need to challenge that by pointing out that having a woman president who is a bad president is not going to advance the concept of gender equality, but in fact is going to reinforce gender stereotypes of women being less effective than men. We need to point out that any Identity Politics motive is wrong.
In other words, we need to work on the concept stated so clearly by Martin Luther King, Jr., the man who is still held up as a hero of black people even though so many now pay homage to his name while pursuing the very thing he found so abhorrent—the basing of all decisions not on merit, or character, but on skin color. We need to constantly emphasize that the party is a meritocracy, and that skin color is not a factor in success.
I have often referred to the comedy team of Key and Peele. They are biracial, which means they can address racial issues that white people can’t touch, and they do so with a great deal of humor and boldness. They are very successful, in their comedy team and show but also as individuals who are often seen in other shows. There is one brief clip of them standing on stage in front of an audience discussing the fact that they are each half black and half white, and they mention that they usually talk exactly the way they are talking to the audience—-which is like normal, educated, people talk. (Which is sometimes referred to as “talking white”.) But then they admit that when they are with “brothers” their speech changes, and they illustrate this, shifting into what we think of as black speech patterns and vernacular. They joke about it, and it is really funny, but the underlying truth is that they would not be so successful, in so many areas of entertainment, if they limited themselves to the black speech patterns and vernacular they employ when they are with “brothers”.
They get it.
And the GOP needs to find a way to address this, to get the message across that success is available to ANYONE who is willing to work for it, and that means understanding the rules. There is the carefully nurtured (because it is so divisive) concept that understanding and following the rules means being a sellout, being a “traitor to the race”, etc. It is carefully nurtured because it guarantees that those who fall for it will then purposely isolate themselves from achievement, having accepted the false either/or paradigm of either fitting into mainstream society OR being proud of and true to ones’ race and ethnicity. It’s BS but it works, and its purpose is to keep various races off the success ladder and therefore dependent on government handouts, which translates into voting for those who provide them.
We’ve actually had this conversation a number of times over the years when someone asserts that all the racists left the Democrat Party back in the 50’s and became Republicans. Some did, the most notable of which was Strom Thurmond, but not a significant number, and certainly not at the national level. Died-in-the-wool racists like Albert Gore Sr., William Fullbright, Robert Byrd, Russell Long, Richard Russell, John Stennis, just to name a few, were all Democrats until their dying day.
I’d suggest you at least read through the wikipedia page on the Southern Strategy, if not follow through on reading about some of the things H. R. Haldeman and Kevin Phillips openly said. Or just ask Ken Mehlman, former RNC chairmen, who specifically and publicly apologized to the NAACP: “Some Republicans gave up on winning the African-American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization. I am here as Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong.”
There is no doubt that the Republican party deliberately became the party of racism in the 60s. It isn’t a matter of conjecture, it is part of the public record.
Also, good job telling us that you think that black people are poor because they don’t work hard enough, Amazona. That’s exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about when I mention thinly-veiled racism.
I’d also like to hear more about this conspiracy theory that black culture is being controlled so they can be kept poor and pliable. Who is doing it, and how exactly does that work? Does it also involve getting people like you to condescendingly claim that an entire race of people is being swindled so you can provide yet another reason for the Republican party to never get any significant part of the black vote?
I’d also like to hear more about this conspiracy theory that black culture is being controlled so they can be kept poor and pliable. Who is doing it, and how exactly does that work?
I guess you need to read something besides Wikipedia. The history of how Progressive social and economic policies have destroyed the black family and kept poor blacks on the plantation is pretty well documented.
Tryvasty, you bring up a fascinating question. Not about your post per se, because that is mostly crap, but about you. Are you a returning troll, using new name to squirm onto the blog so you can dump your usual troll BS on it, or are you a newbie who has just been poisoned with toxic Leftist nonsense?
(1) We have heard the trolls bleating, ad nauseum, about the dreaded “Southern Strategy”, have looked it up (not just on wikipedia, which I am sure you know is not always reliable, especially when dealing with politics) and don’t find any “Southern Strategy” a compelling argument.
(2) ” looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization.” is not the same thing, by any means, as discriminating against any race. It is a statement that racial POLARIZATION has existed, and that in this one man’s opinion the GOP either looked the other way or tried to benefit politically from it. It is not a statement that it was created by the GOP, only that the GOP accepted it and tried to use it to their own benefit.
(3) “I am here as Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong.” Wrong as in not trying to change this existing polarization, as well as thinking it could be used for political advantage. Again, not taking responsibility for creating it..
Clearly it is very important for you to think of Republicans as racists, so important that you did you own research, finding a reference to the “Southern Strategy” and digging up Mehlman’s quote all by your little old self. Because that’s what you did, right? You didn’t just regurgitate some tired old crap that hate-filled Lefties love to wallow in, did you? Because it just happens to be, coincidentally I am sure, exactly the same old crap our old trolls loved to spew.
“There is no doubt that the Republican party deliberately became the party of racism in the 60s. It isn’t a matter of conjecture, it is part of the public record.” Yeah, except it isn’t. Unless by “party of racism in the 60s” you mean the party that forcibly shoved the Civil Rights Amendment down the throats of Democrats, over the strenuous opposition of (Democrat) President Lyndon B. Johnson, racist-in-chief of the Democrat Party.
“Also, good job telling us that you think that black people are poor because they don’t work hard enough, Amazona. Also, good trollworthy job of simply misstating what I said. Just FYI, here we call that “lying” and it is the hallmark of a Lefty troll. Just curious—well, only a little, since what you say is of zero significance to me—but did you take the comment about “meritocracy” as a statement that “black people are poor because they don’t work hard enough”? If you find it offensive to state that people should be judged on their character and not on the color of their skin, that might be a topic for another time. Or, more likely, not, as the obverse—that people should be judged solely on the color of their skin—is not only offensive to me, it is tiresome, and more to the point the very essence of racism.
Or maybe you decided that a comment about many black people purposely staying off the ladder of accomplishment because they have been schooled (by racists, I might add) to believe in what I clearly referred to as “.. the false either/or paradigm of either fitting into mainstream society OR being proud of and true to ones’ race and ethnicity” is the same thing as saying “black people are poor because they don’t work hard enough”. No, it means what it says. It means that when people make the DECISION to not comply with the general rules of success, they are making the DECISION to not achieve it—-in this case due to the false paradigm I stated. It might help you wade through actual thought-based commentary if you look up the meaning of “false” and “paradigm” and then try to work out the meaning of that sentence.
” That’s exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about when I mention thinly-veiled racism.” Oh, dear, are we back to the dog-whistle, coded message, microaggression nonsense of the terminally deluded Left? Again? Here is a hint, little troll or troll-in-waiting—-if you are determined to find “racism” everywhere you look, you will find racism everywhere you look, even when you have to invent it.
“I’d also like to hear more about this conspiracy theory that black culture is being controlled so they can be kept poor and pliable. Who is doing it, and how exactly does that work? “ Seriously? I’ll tell you what—-check out the writings of people like Thomas Sowell on the destructive impact of welfare on the black family Do a little research to see the correlation among dependence on the Welfare State, fatherless homes, crime and gang involvement by young black males, resulting incarceration, and the effect of all this on employment prospects. I’m sure you can do it. After all, you dug up that Mehlman quote all by yourself, didn’t you?
And it shouldn’t take you too long to uncover the well-known fact that it is the Democrat Party that has promoted this kind of condescending welfare system on a population IT clearly believes is not competent enough to care for itself. If you want to bleat about “racism” you might look at the racism of Affirmative Action, welfare, and the often-stated opinion of the Left that black folks just can’t make it without the paternalistic hand of the government and its lowering of standards, handouts, etc. That’s not even “thinly veiled” racism—it is in-your-face, headline, racism. And it is from the Left. Your Left.
It’s not a “conspiracy theory”, dumpling. It is a fact. It has been identified, analyzed, dissected, reviewed, discussed and discussed again, over and over, for the past couple of decades. Its basis is a lot more established and proven than the hockey stick theory of AGW, yet your response seems to indicate that you are a denier. Hmmmm. You either truly do deny the relationship between the dependence of a large number of black people on government welfare and the subsequent decay of the culture of that demographic, or you are playing another tired old troll game and trying to get us lured into more of those tiresome, endless squabbles that serve only to let the troll population hurl more troll turds onto the blog.
In any case, if you want us to think you are not a recycled troll, it’s up to you to prove it, Right now you are behind on points.
I think there is some – one, in fact – quote out there about it…but if there was a “Southern Strategy” it sure as heck didn’t work well because it was only 40 years later that the South started to go GOP outside of GOP blow-out Presidential contests. It sure as heck didn’t work in 1968 when it was allegedly first set in motion (though Nixon did manage to win a few Southern States…but even then, that was only because the Democrats were split between two Democrats: Wallace and Humphrey…Nixon won SC, I think, with about 38% of the vote so whatever “Southern Strategy” he was pursuing sure didn’t work real well).
Our Progressives have to believe, though, that racism is a basic element…because they are, in their own quite mistaken view, anti-racists and thus anyone opposed to them must necessarily be of an opposite view.
Worse? Not sure who would be worse as President – I just know that now, today, Hillary is worse because of what she’s actually done while wielding power in the American political system. Give Trump or Hillary the (vastly expanded, downright Imperial) powers asserted by Obama and either one of them might wreck the nation. Of course, if Obama could seek a third term then it might be his relentless incompetence that would do us in.
But, leaving that aside, the concept that racism is even a microscopic part of the GOP is absurd. Even Trump is not a racist. Of course, the word “racist” has been so abused by the left that it has become meaningless in practical terms. A racist is someone who asserts that a group of people is bad based solely upon their ethnic makeup. In a nation of 317 million people you’re going to get all sorts of opinions, including quite stupid ones, asserted by some millions of people…and, so, yes there are people in America today – numbering in millions – who think that African-Americans or Jews, or Latinos or all of them are bad simply because of what they are…and, of course, people who assert the just as racist opinion that white people are inherently racist. But don’t pay too much attention to large groups of people who are tiny relative to the whole – even 32 million people is only 10% of Americans and if 90% of them are of the opinion then the nation is of that other opinion, not of the opinion of the small minority. But I doubt there even more than three or four million genuine racists in the United States. They are magnified, though, through modern megaphones in the MSM (which for political reasons likes to play up racist thought) and, of course, things like social media making them appear more prevalent than they are.
An example of this falsity of what we see compared to what really is happened to me last night – on Twitter I noticed that Sean Hannity had tweeted out a plug for his upcoming exclusive interview with Trump and I decided to make a little joke about it – rewteeting it with my comment, “See that Hannity if finally giving Trump a little air time”. Hannity, himself, took exception to this little joke of mine and called me a wise ass for saying it. Instantly my Twitter feed exploded with pro- and anti-Trump people chiming in on what I had said, and what Hannity had said in response. It was quite impressive…until I talked it up with various friends today and found that five in seven of them didn’t even know who Hannity is! I’m the political junkie and I some times forget that – what we argue about in politics doesn’t even make an impression on the overwhelming majority of Americans in their day to day lives. It is true that they should take a bit more interest (and if they did, neither Trump nor Sanders nor Hillary would have a ghost of a chance) but that is just the way things are.
It is most emphatically not racist to want border security – nor to want to deport all illegals. I’m opposed to that, but those who want it are not being racist, they are just holding to a view – the strictly correct view, by the way – that the law is the law and if you break the law you should pay the price. I just don’t think it practical nor merciful to do that. It is not at all racist to point out that the African-American family has been destroyed and this has led to a great deal of social pathology among the African-American community. It is not at all racist to point out that even if 99% of Muslim immigrants are peaceful, the 1% who aren’t could cause a great deal of damage.
To be sure, the liberals have managed to make a lot of hay in playing up the idea of endemic racism in the United States…it works to their advantage to keep everyone hating each other. But the fact that we’ve been played in a sick and twisted manner by power hungry cretins doesn’t change the actual facts.
“A racist is someone who asserts that a group of people is bad based solely upon their ethnic makeup.”
True. But I submit that a racist is anyone who asserts any non-physical characteristic to anyone based on race or ethnicity, whether positive or negative. “Asians are better at math” is also racist.
A few thoughts:
– Travesty is an excellent example of the stunted intellect of progressives. A society can never “progress” when you have a segment of the population so ignorant of history and so allegiant to a narrow and dishonest political faction that promotes lies and division for political gain. If the Democrats consider themselves to be the party of minorities, than the results of their policies should be the measure of their success, not the contrived perceptions, and every objective measure show their policies to be catastrophic failures. Our current crop of progressives are no longer worthy of debate or even in my opinion recognition for being human.
– I completely agree with you re: Trump vs Hillary. Trump is by far the more preferable candidate, and will win over Hillary by a wide margin. Trump could also change the electoral map by winning in traditionally blue states like NY, IL, Mi, and possibly CA.
– I also agree with you that “conservative Republicans” are to blame for the rise of Trump starting with George H.W. Bush’s “read my lips” pledge, and the Republicans continued allegiance to the spending desires of the political class elite which was interrupted briefly by the common sense and effective policies of Newt Gingrich. Unfortunately Newt’s policies were short lived and the march toward bigger, less effective government continued unabated leading to the GOP’s loss in 2006 and the rise of the Tea Party. The GOP can not be trusted.
– Let’s stop with the African American label. I would guess that 99% of them have never been to Africa, and probably 50% of them would have difficulty pointing out Africa on a map. I prefer to call them Americans, but knowing the importance they place on their skin color, we should simply identify them as black Americans. I also disagree with you that if more black Americans supported the GOP, Trump would not be a factor. I think many black Americans will prefer Trump over Hillary.
– Re: the Christian genocide, I am waiting for Obama to really put some teeth into his plans by forming break out discussion groups in the White House followed by a luncheon and a press conference. That should show ISIS that we are serious.
– Re: John McCain who has lost my vote. His opponent Kelli Ward is a common sense young conservative, a Doctor, and an excellent alternative to the out of touch McCain.
– I hope the GOP continues to enforce the Biden rule and not consider the SC nominee. I find it laughingly ironic that the Democrats now want to have a functioning Senate after years of obstruction and rule changes allowing Obama to bypass them at every turn. Pay back is a bitch.
– I will vote for Cruz in Tuesday’s primary but I am concerned about his ability to win the general.
Travesty made a head-fake at being objective, but true to Progressive troll form as soon as he got a courteous response he went back to the playbook. His Progressive inclinations were clear from the get-go, but as long as he appeared to be a newcomer to the blog who might be amenable to actual discourse I wasn’t ready to dismiss him as a returning troll. The regurgitation of the same old same old quickly told me what camp he is in, IMO.
I am resigned to the possibility of a Trump candidacy and possibly a Trump presidency, and I agree that I would prefer Trump to Hillary. That doesn’t change the fact that a Trump nomination, and/or a Trump presidency, and/or a GOP loss to the Dems, are all on the heads of the GOP hierarchy.
If I thought Trump could beat Hillary, I would be less concerned, but I know that the Left has a huge arsenal of Trump facts that are very likely to sink a Trump candidacy when the big guns come out.
One example: Mitt Romney, a faithful husband of many years who had never in his entire life uttered a single word that anyone could consider disrespectful to women, was sunk, according to Conventional Wisdom, to a great extent by the success of the Left’s claim that the GOP represents A WAR ON WOMENNNNNN !!! Can anyone truly believe that this claim will not get a lot of traction when applied to Donald Trump?
The man is a walking, blathering misogynist with a vile hateful anti-woman mouth that simply will not quit. His treatment of women is shameful, and he seems to be proud of it. Aside from his whoremongering and serial adultery, there is his overall attitude toward women, seeing a woman only as “a tight piece of ass” or rating her on her attractiveness with large breasts a deal-breaker–“no flat chested woman could ever be a 10”. He has written his advice to men in one of his books, that the role of a woman in marriage is to be supportive of her man, and that if a wife complains about the hours her husband works or expects more attention from him (presumably to his children and home as well as to her) he should just get rid of her, cut her loose, dump her, divorce her. He dismissed Carly Fiorina not on a disagreement with her political stance but on her face. He routinely attacks women in a very demeaning and hateful way. If the WAR ON WOMENNNN!!! did that much damage to Romney, what is it going to do to Trump?
Personally, I think we have passed the tipping point now. Unless Trump were to do a 180 after a Cruz nomination and throw his support to Cruz, wholeheartedly and with the same energy he has applied to destroying Cruz, I think he has damaged the potential of a large Republican turnout so badly that we can’t recover. I just don’t see Trumpbots rallying to Cruz, turning out in droves to vote for the Republican ticket, if they think their darling got cheated. If Trump’s ego calls for him to fight the nomination, engage in inciting and supporting Trumpertantrums in protest, Cruz could not win….
..unless the Dems go ahead and nominate Clinton, in which case turnout could be so depressed on both sides that the next president could be elected out of a total turnout of half, or less, than that of the last election. There’s a fine picture for you—-a political cartoon of a man and a woman, identified as the Republican Party and the Democrat party, with legs encased in big blobs of concrete labeled “Trump” and “Hillary”, being thrown overboard.
It’s not just that I dread being stuck with Obama Light—and I do mean “Light”, as in a pudgier, pastier, even more arrogant version of Obama. It’s that the damage done to the Republican Party is so deep and so broad, I don’t see it surviving except as a new name for the old Democrat Party, which is off the left side of the cliff and needs a renaming of its own.
I have no defense for Trump but I also don’t buy into the authoritarian rule that so many people worry about. I think Trump has a healthy respect for this country and our form of governance and that he would work through Congress on all matters, but that again may displease some conservatives because of some the deals he may agree to. After Rubio withdrew I went onto donaldjtrump.com and read his positions on tax reform and immigration, which were comprehensive, sensible, and positions that I agree with completely.
I see Trump as a pure New Yorker; brash, crude, sexist, and politically incorrect but I also know him to have a big heart and there are plenty of accounts to prove that. His children are amazing, his business acumen is well documented, and in re: to women, while he has made some very uncomfortable comments, I have read that Trump has placed more women in high executive positions than most other companies, and he continues to have good relations with all of the women in his life. That has to account for something.
Trump is probably the definition of the “ugly American” but when I look out at the rest of the world, it doesn’t look all that pretty to me either, so maybe it is an ugly American we need right now. In re: to the dirt the Democrats may have on him, no one is dirtier than Hillary, so that’s a wash. I also don’t think Trump would be responsible for the implosion of the GOP. I think Lindsey Graham, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, et al are to blame for that possibility.
I am constantly seeing defenses of Trump, without any concern for his constantly repeated statements that HE will do this, HE will do that, much less for the legal ability for even Congress to do those things. I have no idea why you believe he “…has a healthy respect for this country and our form of governance ..” after his documented history and public admissions that he has been a part of, and contributed to, government corruption and crony capitalism, and what amounts to bribery. I just don’t see how his actions, and his words, can lead anyone to the conclusion that he has respect for our form of governance, or that he is willing to or capable of working with any other body to achieve anything.
I go not only on his record but his actual words. I just don’t know how anyone can assert a belief in what he says he believes, and wants to do, when he himself admits that his strategy is to say what he has to say to get what he wants, and to promise anything with the assumption he will change the terms later.
He may have had someone put together some positions that sound coherent and reasonable, but if they are his positions why can’t he explain them? And why, given his admissions of basically lying to get people to agree with him does anyone think that what he says now means anything anyway? Why are his current alleged positions regarding abortion, taxation, immigration and so on so much more valid and credible and binding than his positions on those subjects a few years ago? Or a few months ago?
If he actually DOES have “…a healthy respect for this country and our form of governance..” then why has he spent so much money supporting the party that has been focused on undermining it and “fundamentally transforming” it instead of supporting the Republican Party?
“…his business acumen is well documented..” yet he has had several bankruptcies, which have by the way cost other people millions of dollars, he has taken money for promised projects that never materialized and not returned the savings of the people who made the mistake of trusting him, he has broken the law by falsely calling one of his scams a “university” and still faces legal actions regarding its various nefarious actions. If you start off with millions of dollars of your own and more millions loaned to you by a rich father, if you had a long apprenticeship in his businesses playing with other peoples’ money, if you have a personality that is a combination of bullying and intimidation and a persona that is so brash that you can tell six different stories in six hours with equal conviction, and if you don’t mind losing other peoples’ money on various schemes, then yes you can make some money. If you arbitrarily assign a value of two billion dollars to your name alone and then exaggerate your other assets, you can convince SOME people that you are a lot more successful than you are. This calls for lying, but then liars do lie.
One of his biggest scams of late is his repetition that he is self-funded. No, he has put up SOME money, but most of what he has spent has been LOANED to his campaign fund, to be repaid when he is the candidate. Repaid out of federal campaign funds (that is, taxpayer money) and donations. When Ted Cruz took out a personal loan to help self-fund his campaign,, Trump called him a liar and basically a crook, yet Trump lies to every one of his supporters, who constantly state his alleged “self funding” as one reason for supporting him. “He is using his own money so he doesn’t owe anything to anyone.” Except to the donors who have to repay his loans from himself, that is.
So sweet of you to casually dismiss his vicious and misogynist statements about women as merely “uncomfortable”. While this may allow you to overlook them, your personal choice to find this acceptable “boys will be boys” jocularity, your own position on the subject has absolutely nothing to do with how the Left will use them against him, or how they may shape the election. You may be impressed that there is an impression that he has maintained “…good relations with all the women in his life..” and think that actually means something. I disagree. When an ex is a bully with vast resources and an established pattern of viciously attacking anyone who crosses him, with a track record of suing people who get on his wrong side, you are not likely to speak up about how you really feel about him. Especially when he is the father of your children. There is way too much to lose for just telling people how you feel about him. So any excuse for Trump’s hateful misogyny by saying how his many exes still like him carries no weight whatsoever. And again, not to pick a fight with you, but my comment was not about how YOU feel about it. It is about how the electorate will feel about it.
As for Trump not damaging the GOP, dream on. It was taking some hits, but the only salvation for it would have been to elect a true conservative with true conservative ideals and a true conservative political record and a true conservative political philosophy. Instead, the party and way too many alleged conservatives are selling out to a Progressive who is only marginally better than the opposition, and that only recently when he needed to posture as better to feed his massive ego. Trump represents everything these alleged conservatives have been claiming to hate about the GOP, and he will be laughing all the way to the White House at how many people he conned into believing his reincarnation as a conservative.
So you don’t mind having this nation represented by someone you agree is the epitome of the Ugly American. So you don’t think you will cringe at having this uncouth, bullying, incoherent lout stand for this country on the world stage. That is fine. I find him to be so creepy in his lounge lizard bad taste self-promotion and truly astounding low class persona, I truly do not understand how anyone could look at Trump and say to himself “Yep, that’s how I want the world to see America”.
We still have a chance to have an intelligent, coherent, honorable, dignified, conservative president. I just hope Trump and the people who constantly make excuses all of his soooo many defects don’t ruin that chance, and take the whole conservative movement down with them.
I have to wonder how you will excuse his repeated determination to demand that our Armed Forces commit war crimes.