Trump’s Lies Are a Loyalty Test for His Followers

National Review ^ | April 2, 2016 | Jonah Goldberg

[DoughtyOne]

Yes, I guess it is pretty hard to say, “No.”

ROTF LMAO

You guys are such great entertainment.

[Bruce Campbells Chin]

No, not such as Cruz. Such as Trump.

No matter how lousy a candidate you believe Cruz to be, that doesn't make Trump any better a candidate in the general election. The fact that you think Cruz was worse will not help Trump against Hillary. That's why the whole "he started it" schtick was so juvenile and short-sighted.

[ifinnegan]

No. I don’t think Cruz has.

I think Trump has.

[nathanbedford]

Rebuttal from my previous reply to the preposterous slander that Cruz is an insider and Trump is an outsider:

Let me see if I've got the latest Trump speak well understood:

The son of an illiterate, impoverished, refugee dishwasher through merit and hard-won achievement becomes the national debate champion while an undergraduate at Princeton, law review at Harvard Law school, and clerk to the Chief Justice of the United States is tainted because he is an "Ivy League lawyer"

The same man whom Trump lovers habitually describe as one who could not get along with his fellow senators and could not accomplish anything is the same Senator Trump lovers accuse of "saying and doing anything to get elected." It is remarkable how such a smart Ivy League lawyer would be so stupid in real life about actually saying and doing anything to get elected.

Meanwhile Trump, son of a millionaire, social climber, the consummate insider whose telephone call before he ran for office would be taken by the President of the United States, the same man who admits to bribing politicians, is touted as an independent man of the people.

Ain't Trump speak wonderful?

[redangus]

Going, going, gone, that’s out of here. (The crowd goes wild) Yes he’s just hit a grand slam.

Of course he Trumpkins will be showing up directly to call Goldberg a commie and a rino, which makes his point better than he could ever had.

[Psalm 73]

"...the same man who admits to bribing politicians,..."

Nice. And Hillary even.

[DrewsDad]

That's a lot of rationalizing.

I've said before the whole thing was a minor incident that could be clearly justified in protecting the candidate except for the denial and the attacks.

Do you think a campaign manager should look into a matter a little more before tweeting out to the world that someone is delusional and denying that he never touched her?

[nathanbedford]

He is NOW a political partner with the worst of the worst in the GOPe.

Rubbish!

The GOPe and Cruz are using each other in a process that is normal in every election season as the field is whittled down.

[freedomjusticeruleoflaw]

Jonah Goldperv is not interested in fixing America... unless it’s his way with his people.

[roses of sharon]

I used to exchange emails with Jonah years ago on exactly this topic; the shabby treatment of the Republican base, and our candidates.

I told him that National Review seemed to be writing for the approval of their liberal peers in NY and DC instead of writing for us.

At one point he said I was being too dramatic...after reading this screed I think he should take his own advice.

[UnwashedPeasant]

"Trump’s Lies Are a Loyalty Test for His Followers"

And a Gullibility Test.

[pierrem15]

NR has become yet another barking mangy poodle of the GOPe. They had a mix of coverage until some big donor yanked their chain and it’s been nothing but full- blown Trump Derangement Syndrome ever since.

[pierrem15]

Yeah- it’s a shame but the NR has become a bad joke.

[Lurkinanloomin]

libbylu finally got the boot permanently, I think.

[The Continental Op]

Yes, Jonah has turned into another disappointment. True, he has in the past written well, on some useful topics, and not without some wit. But at his very core, he is an effete establishment prig.

He was raised on the upper west side of New York, and opted for an all women’s college (he was one of the first men admitted). He is married to another effete writer, who refused to take his last name. Momma’s boy extreme—remember mommy dearest, Lucienne?

Trump threatens people like Jonah. Trump was born in Queens NY. To the Upper West Side crowd, guys from Queens represent something to be scraped off the bottom of one’s shoe. They went wild when Trump had the temerity to build there. Truth is, Trump is a man, and Jonah is a pampered boy who never grew up, never ran a business (other than a brief stint running mommy’s publishing firm before it went away) and could not conceivably survive other than as a member of the NY Times/NR/Weekly Standard chattering class. He has suckled noisily at the teat of the GOPe almost since birth, and guys like Trump scare him down to his silk socks.

[E=MC²]

Trump is a ginormous liar.

[SubMareener]

Now we are getting somewhere!

All that you say is true, except the phony comparison to Obama.

They match characteristic by characteristic. Here are some more. Their mothers were Americans, their fathers were foreigners. They both held citizenship in other countries. Neither was well liked by their Senate colleagues. They both used "Data Analytics" to shape their message and identify likely receptive voters. They both used legal challenges to eliminate competitors. They both wrote auto-biographies before they were 50 years old.

Yes, Cruz has been interested in America since he was a kid.

As a foreign born child, this would be natural. Plus, he tells us in his book that he wasn't popular and decided to figure out and do what the popular kids did.

Maybe it was because of his father’s experiences in Cuba.

Yes, his father was a Communist revolutionary who claims to have been fooled by Castro, and now thinks that Christians should take over the world, not Communists. Look up Seven Mountains Dominionism.

Who knows what shapes people.

Well, if you have lived long enough, you identify family life as a primary molding factor. If the kids are old enough, you look at how they turned out.

He was particularly interested in the U.S. Constitution, how it works and how it has until now, kept America the greatest country in the world.

Well, if you think the Constitution kept America the greatest country in the world, how do you explain how we got to where we are? Obviously, when judges feel free to violate the clear reading of the Constitution, something is missing. I happen to believe that it was the Fear of the Lord that used to animate most of civil society. That made its formal exit in 1962.

No, he did not inherit money and proceed to do foolish things with it.

Donald and his four siblings inherited money when their father died, but that was well after Donald had turned a $1 million loan into his real estate empire. A loan that was paid back, by the way. Ted Cruz took out a $1 million dollar loan from Goldman-Sacks and CitiBank to finance his Senate campaign, and we will have to see if it has been spent on foolish things.

No, he is not a narcissist.

"Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental disorder in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for admiration and a lack of empathy for others." Are you sure you want to go there? As Yogi Berra used to say, "It ain't bragging if you can do it!"

People become interested in politics at different points in their life. For Ted, it was early because he wanted to help the country.

For Donald, it was at the age of almost 70 when he got tired of his 80 foot living room and his trophy wife collecting and wanted to get a really nice trophy ... like, say, the presidency.

Because Donald had NOT been interested in the constitution and politics in his life, he is now deeply over his head.

You seem to be misinformed about Donald Trump. This is Donald J. Trump in 1987, when Ted Cruz was seventeen.

What’s Next

Fortunately, I don’t know the answer, because if I did, that would take half the fun out of it.

This much I do know: it won’t be the same.

I’ve spent the first twenty years of my working life building, accumulating, and accomplishing things that many said could not be done. The biggest challenge I see over the next twenty years is to figure out some creative ways to give back some of what I’ve gotten.

I don’t just mean money, although that’s part of it. It’s easy to be generous when you’ve got a lot, and anyone who does, should be. But what I admire most are people who put themselves directly on the line. I’ve never been terribly interested in why people give, because their motivation is rarely what it seems to be, and it’s almost never pure altruism. To me, what matters is the doing, and giving time is far more valuable than just giving money.

In my life, there are two things I’ve found I’m very good at: overcoming obstacles and motivating good people to do their best work. One of the challenges ahead is how to use those skills as successfully in the service of others as I’ve done, up to now, on my own behalf.

Don’t get me wrong. I also plan to keep making deals, big deals, and right around the clock.

Trump, Donald J.; Schwartz, Tony (2009-12-18). Trump: The Art of the Deal (Kindle Locations 4242-4252). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Donald Trump ran for President in 2000. He lost the Reform Party nomination to Pat Buchanan. He wrote "The America We Deserve" in 2009.

Yes, Ted Cruz is articulate, can speak and can debate and he knows his stuff. I don’t see that as a bad thing.

Neither can I, especially if talk is what you are interested in doing for a living.

[The Continental Op]

“Are you a past subscriber? (to NR) Have you read the last couple of editions (and not just the snippets on FR)? Or is this just something someone told you?”

Speaking for myself, yes. I subscribed for many, many years. In fact, I bought my first computer, a little MAC LC, so I could join their first online effort, Townhall, back in the 80s. I really loved Buckley. I still have an original copy of “God and Man at Yale”. Then, I watched as NR weakened, and went about the purges of anyone who dared speak in even a nationalistic whisper. They insisted in defining the boundaries of conservatism, and in so doing sought to shrink, not enlarge, the “big tent”. Off they went, one by one. We began with Russel Kirk, and now we are left with little Jonah.

Without question, NR is a shadow of its former self, in every way.

[central_va]

National Review really? LOL.

[mlizzy]

Do you think Trump has never paid for an abortion by any one of his numerous wives, girlfriends or mistresses?

---

From an article by Maureen Dowd:

Dowd: When [you were] a swinging bachelor in Manhattan, [were you] ever involved with anyone who had an abortion?

Trump: “Such an interesting question,” he said. “So what’s your next question?

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/03/opinion/sunday/trump-does-it-his-way.html?_r=0