The Donald, as some affectionately call him, is a real estate tycoon who took his share of the 400 to 500 million plus left by his father and parlayed it into more. But then, arguably one might have to be on the wrong side of stupid to start with that large of a stake and not do. He went to military prep school, which he thinks qualifies him as military, and Penn, so he’s probably not stupid. On the other hand, his penchant for repeating himself with the illusion of the first time might cause some to wonder. One is also reminded how often he not only repeats, but contradicts himself, as well.
I am not only talking 2008, when he gave Hillary Clinton an uncharacteristically large donation for the billionaire’s miserly reputation, and then, campaigned for her. In so doing he contradicted positions he claims to hold now. I am also referring to how often his undisciplined, loose style causes him to contradict positional statements in his own presidential campaign, many with which he seems to be clumsy and unfamiliar. Could it be he has not been fully instructed as to what conservative positions are?
During his current campaign, The Donald has been both for funding planned parenthood and against it. His impulse when initially asked about accepting Syrian refugees was yes, then it became no. What little we know of his policies often contradict reason as well as his own bombastic rhetoric. To round up every one of the 12 to 14 million illegals in the United States and deport them, because, “They must go,” is not only gestapolike, but logistically and financially unfeasible. Then to turn around and “bring back the good ones,” as he advocates is just laughable. After he spends billions on the millions of jackboot, Elian Gonzales style deportations, he plans to bring the good ones back to cut in line, again. Who are the good ones, anyway? Are they the people with gene pools that pass muster? Who approves them — other people with approved gene pools? He spends an inordinate amount of attention on genetics for my comfort level, especially when referencing how special and “right” his genes are. That kind of talk is as creepy now as it was in 1939.
In spite of his vaunted gene pool, he clearly has naive and nonstrategic positions on national security, since he supports Obama ceding the powerbrokering of the Middle East to Putin. He does not seem to understand that such a move will now allow Russia, in axis with Iran and Syria, with perhaps, to some degree, North Korea, to control its energy and give Putin, imperially-minded KGB tactician with a personal Peter the Great reincarnation obsession, dangerous leverage over the global economy.
It was in a very telling interview with Hugh Hewitt that Trump did not recognize one of several of the leaders of the most common terror groups even casual political observers could identify. The interviewer prefaced the question with an out for Mr. Trump allowing that he might yet be unstudied on all the particulars of foreign policy. He clearly has naive and unstudied positions on national security, so, Trump defaulted to the carny style oneliners that I can now recite. Later, behind Hewitt’s back, he blasted the man as one of the “loser” class with Trump’s own branded, cowardly bullying.
We are part of the loser class he loves to hate if we disagree that he is good for America or dare to point out his inexperience, lack of information on the issues, or inconsistencies. Some of those he has designated as stupid, clowns, and losers follow for your perusal:
-Ben Carson, who exhibits quiet strength with practical, disciplined
intelligence and whose energy took him from poverty to groundbreaking
neurosurgery, though not a proving ground for president, I would add.
-Bobby Jindal, whose family legally immigrated to the United
States, ivy leaguer, is a governor with a proven record as a knowledgeable
and active Conservative. He entered office after Katrina and managed the
recovery, suffered a hit from another major storm, dealt with the highs
and lows of Obama’s attack on the oil and gas industry in his state, fought
Obamacare in a welfare-minded populace, and still managed eight credit
upgrades while cutting 30,000 plus bureaucratic positions from state
government.
-Carly Fiorina, tough minded, serious conservative whose positions were
forged in battle. She took on an entrenched establishment California
democrat after a business career in which she rose from secretary to
CEO, saving her major tech firm during the dot com crash.
-Rick Perry, who, after a military career as a fighter pilot, went on to
serve the nation in politics to eventually rise to the governorship of Texas.
There, he tackled the oppressive regulations and invasiveness of the
Obama Administration to make Texas an historical jobs market, and
business and tax friendly state with one of the world’s largest economies
while cutting illegal immigration at its border by about 75%.
These four accomplished, serious and service minded Americans, were judged by Donald Trump, casino builder and brand peddler, as the “loser” class. Three of whom, in an unexplainably sophomoric move, he has chosen to also insult their personal appearance. The point is not whether these folks should be president, the argument is that Trump’s characterization of these successful people whose lives have impacted society for good are not “losers”, “anchor babies”, or “pedophiles.”
In a less publicized faux pas, Trump could not answer a financial question because he did not know the difference between trade deficits and the budget deficit. One can only presume that he did not think to catch the clues in their names. On financial issues, he wants to tax “hedge fund guys,” because they make a lot of money. If they are consistently successful, they can. When their ventures fail, however, no system is in place to buffer their losses. Theirs is a very high risk, high reward or crash career; and, unlike The Donald, they carry their own losses.
On the other hand, Mr. Trump games the bankruptcy laws, sticking his losses to investors, contractors, service and sales providers, and, ultimately taxpayers. He has been known to tie up properties until they cause urban blight, are foreclosed on, and sold at reduced values at auction. These practices are not illegal. Some would even call them clever. Most, however, would not brag about them or demonstrate the cavalier attitude he does about those suffering the financial pain of his failures. Once, when asked about the victims of his schemes, he answered, “It’s not my problem anymore.” These business ethics are no more conservative than his playing fast and loose with with eminent domain laws.
Trump has fought for the right of big corporations like his own to take the property of private citizens unwilling to sell for private business sector interests. He is not making room for freeway spurs, airports, or hospitals, but casinos and parking garages. He seems to come by these strongarm tactics from his history of partnering with questionable characters from the mob world. His business connections with crime families may explain why Teflon Don has been able to employ illegals without being protested by labor unions. He did not escape legal penalty in 1991, however, for conspiring to deny the Polish illegals he employed at low wages the required welfare and pension payments. He housed the workers on the building site, did not issue hardhats, and claimed to not notice them. They were building the Trump Tower.
It’s like this, the man has played democratic style politics with his business concerns for years — the very area he calls his wheelhouse. He is what your better instincts tell you he is. Far from being an outsider, the man seems consumed with money, power, position and prestige. He courts people in possession of those things seemingly to get more for number one. This guy is the name dropper impressed by flash and cash.
The Donald seems to crave being the center of attention, commenting on how his adoring fans are loving his shtick. He plays “The B I B L E” card to gullible evangelicals willing to settle, without being able to quote one single personally meaningful Bible passage, while pronouncing to the next audience how much he loves Mohammedans. He compulsively inflates his numbers, even good ones, and demeans others thinking it raises him. His divisiveness within the Republican base has given rise to the buffoonery and vitriol in his “followers” that are very similar to that we have seen demonstrated by Obama-ites, as they try to drown out opposing conservative voices.
Far from being an outsider, Donald Trump plays politics in the most negative of Hollywood connotations of the word. In a nutshell: Governor Bobby Jindal said of Obamacare, “repeal and replace.” He then proceeded to act on those words by rejecting the trickery of Medicare expansion, implementing his ideas for cost cutting and improving the efficiency of the charity hospital system in his state only to have a fight mounted against him from his state’s Democrat and crony boss machines. Trump said, when asked years outside the battle, “repeal and replace ‘frigging’ Obamacare.” The crowds, fired up by the circus atmosphere of mindless brash talk, the media feeding frenzy celebrity it incites, along with the free helicopter rides, proverbially, went wild.
Have we come to be so like the ancients of Rome that a celebrity entertainer can numb our minds to the point that we are persuaded more by those entertaining words, enticing television shock ops, and infomercial politics than studied, charactered, experienced, proven people of substance? The naive and hopeful followed their pied piper in 2008. If history repeats, and this adulation without merit continues, we had better have fire extinguishers ready, because the Donald Trump show may be on fire; but, as in the days of Nero, one can hear violin music in the crackle of its smoky fire.
