Posted on 02/18/2016 10:23:44 AM PST by Bill Russell
Since candidates first started throwing their hats in the ring for the Republican Presidential nomination, I have been cheering for Ted Cruz as my first choice. There were also a number of candidates whom I would gladly support against the Democratic challengers. I really liked the way Donald Trump was electrifying the electorate and he was near the top of my list.
But that has changed. Trump is now at the bottom of my list.
As I have watched Donald Trump's attacks on Ted Cruz in recent weeks, and especially those in the last few days leading up to the South Carolina Primary, he has reminded me of the actions taken by the sociopath who stalked me and my family during and after my congressional campaigns in Pennsylvania in 2008 and 2010. What I now see occurring on the national level is a magnified reflection of what I experienced in my dealings with a petty grifter in a rural congressional district.
The last few weeks have seen a variety of vicious personal attacks with Trump calling Cruz a liar, accusing him of committing fraud in the Iowa Caucuses, stating that he is an "unstable" person, and threatening him with lawsuits over his eligibility. Trump's angry delivery of his denunciations of Cruz, his constant portrayal of himself as savoir of the republic and victim of Cruz's "lying" campaign ads (the ones using Trumps own statements and records against him), and his constant use of threats to attempt to intimidate Cruz, is reminiscent of my stalker's sociopathic behavior.
During the course of my dealings with my stalker, Larry (his real name), I had to do some quick research on sociopaths and their characteristics. Anyone can find a multitude of mental health websites that will explain that sociopaths are experts at appealing to our sympathies and convincing us that they really well meaning. They can be highly seductive and even have a special charisma. They usually blame others for their situations to maintain their charade of innocence and victimhood. They have defective consciences with an inability to feel empathy and lack remorse for wrongdoing. They are often inappropriate and give excessive attention to the objects of their sexual attraction. While usually smart, they often overestimate their own intelligence, are often unethical and immoral, but manage to avoid major run-ins with the law. They exhibit deceitfulness by lying and conning others with enough truth mixed in to make their stories plausible. But their downfall is their impulsiveness, irritability and aggressiveness - especially when their "mask of kindness" comes off. Unfortunately, they often wind up in positions of authority, because they crave power over others.
I first met Larry in late October of 2007 when he volunteered to join my campaign against the infamous King of Pork, John Murtha. He touted himself as combat Marine who was ticked off at Murtha's betrayal of the Haditha Marines and undermining of the troops in Iraq. He said he had decades of campaign experience and was the ideal person to be my campaign manager. I decided to give him a try on a volunteer basis. By late November it was clear that he was the wrong person to lead the campaign as his lack of organizational skills and attempts to intimidate people I wanted to win over were the absolute wrong fit for my campaign. We parted ways permanently on January 3, 2008 after Larry grew unhinged and threatening.
Immediately following our parting, Larry undertook a campaign of harassment which lasted beyond the course of my political runs against Mr Murtha and ended in late 2010. On a personal level, I received a constant barrage of threatening emails and harassing letters and phone calls threatening lawsuits, smears, and collections actions by Coastal Asset Recovery (Larry's collection agency). On the public level, Larry threatened to run against me in the 2008 primary, issued a false statement through a fake public relations firm stating that I had fired him for being a "disabled Vietnam Veteran with Agent Orange diabetes." He entered every possible online forum under false names to accuse me of slander/theft/lying and say he was suing me in federal court. He took the smallest of issues and extrapolated them into accusations of theft, fraud, and discrimination by me. He even went to work in a paid status for John Murtha, and created multiple websites to attack me including one fake website using my name to do personal attacks on the family of my primary opponent in 2010.
Fortunately for me, Larry did not have Mr Trumps billions of dollars, nor his bully pulpit with which to conduct his harassment of me. We were able to largely mitigate his attacks by ignoring him. But the parallels in Larry's and Mr Trump's behaviors are astounding. When I listen to Mr Trump's vicious and unfounded accusations against Ted Cruz, I am reminded of Larry's attempts to intimidate and threaten me on the night we parted company. As I listen to Trump's repeated threats of lawsuits, and his renewed threats to run as third party candidate, I cannot help but compare his behavior to Larry's continuous letters and emails threatening to sue me.
Mr Trump's repeated accusations over the Iowa Caucuses remind me of the false accusations Larry made against me and which were repeated by the Murtha Campaign. On the night of the Iowa Caucuses, CNN broadcast a story stating that Ben Carson was leaving Iowa just after the caucuses and not going immediately to New Hampshire as almost all of the other candidates were. CNN speculated that it could mean that Carson was leaving the race. The story became catnip thrown into the rough and tumble process of herding cats and votes in the open forums that are the Iowa Caucuses. All of the campaigns had access to the story and there were multiple reports that the story was used to persuade Carson voters to switch to other candidates, including Cruz. Mr Trump continues to tout the incident as if it was a massive and underhanded conspiracy on the part of Mr Cruz to steal votes from Ben Carson. Mr Trump's accusations appear to be no truer than when Larry took an unspecified expenditure line for $187,000 from one of my campaign's FEC reports to falsely accuse me of stealing that money from my campaign. Like Larry, Mr Trump appears to believe if he repeats a lie often enough, people will believe it.
Just this week, we have watched the story of a false Facebook page claiming to be Congressman Trey Gowdy denouncing Senator Marco Rubio and endorsing Ted Cruz. I cannot help but think of Larry's use of the false website using my name to conduct a dirty personal attack. The Rubio camp immediately responded by denouncing the post as a dirty trick from the Cruz campaign. The final truth on who was behind it may never be known, but I cannot help but think that it came from Trump or one of his supporters to try to bolster the Trump and Rubio mantras accusing Ted Cruz of lying.
Just like Larry, Mr Trump continues to pose as the victim of lies and mistreatment and threatens lawsuits for defamation or to challenge Cruz's Natural Born Citizenship. If Mr Trump does sue Ted Cruz, he will discover the truth is an absolute defense in a court of law, and the truth is on Cruz’s side. He will lose a defamation lawsuit because he actually said the words that Cruz is using against him in interviews and he supported and donated to the Democratic candidates he now says he is against. He will lose a challenge to Cruz's Natural Born Citizenship, because Cruz is a Natural Born Citizen in accordance with the Constitution and legal precedent. (If Trump really believed Ted Cruz to be ineligible, he would have already challenged him in court.)
If Mr Trump continues in his bombastic folly, he will face a very bright spotlight of public scrutiny which he has managed to avoid to this point. Ted Cruz's legal and Supreme Court credentials are far beyond any legal skill I could bring to the arena. But when Larry finally did get around to suing me through his collection agency in small claims court, he lost. Over the course of my dealings with him, I managed to find out enough about Larry to publicly expose his lies in the press, reveal his history of criminal investigations, bankruptcies, warrants, and lawsuits as well as his desertion from the Marine Corps. Three weeks after my fraud complaint to the District Attorney against Larry for his lawsuit, his collection agency was out of business.
In given circumstances, anyone is capable of cruelty, lying and extreme selfishness. But the sociopath makes a lifestyle of these traits. The best method of dealing with sociopaths is to recognize them early and avoid them. If you are already entangled with them, do whatever you can to protect yourself from further harm. I can only urge Republican voters to go with anyone but Trump. For even if Ted Cruz does not highlight the episodes of Mr Trump's life where he exhibited these traits on a grand scale, it is a sure bet the Democrats will if he is the nominee.
The DNC and media have plenty of Trump brand catnip to throw into that cat fight.
A History of Deception
The definitive timeline of what Ted Cruz said and did in the 2013 immigration debate.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/01/
Stalking is when I get EIGHT fundraisers from Cruz in every mailbox everyday. Why don’t you try to get to the bottom of the real corruption within the RNC that Trump is TRYING to tell you about.
The RNC is Corrupt and out to destroy Trump. NRSC & NRCC scamming Trump supporters.
http://towncriernews.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-rnc-is-corrupt-and-out-to-destroy.html
“I really liked the way Donald Trump was electrifying the electorate and he was near the top of my list.”
Trump really screwed up by going psycho and praising Uniparty elites.
Totally agree.
If you don’t vote for Ted Cruz, then you hate Jesus and America.
I sympathize with your bad experience, but Trump using the bully pulpit during the election process does not even compare to the shameful tactics of the Cruz campaign since Iowa. I’ll even give a pass to the “mistake” of misleading voters on caucus day. With that aside, there’s still been an avalanche of underhanded tactics from Cruz: shame mailers misleading voters, fake check mailers, misleading advertisements, photoshopping, etc. That’s not to mention the stalker-ish level of spam Ted (and Heidi, but don’t tell Ted she’s e-mail you) sends you if you manage to get signed up for anything related to the RNC.
If you don’t like Trump, that’s OK. There’s nothing wrong with a difference in candidate preference, it happens. But in my view, the Cruz campaign’s treatment of voters in this campaign has been really bad, especially from a guy who claims to be the “not business-as-usual” choice in the race.
Problem is the current POTUS has lowered the bar so far almost anybody can clear it. For instance, unless you have had court records unsealed in a (successful I might add) attempt to have a political opponent drop out of a race you are in you are above the bar already.
Nothing like pimping your blog.
Cultural decline is reflected in the available leaders. So much of this seems like a kind of restatement of the late Roman republic and its ultimate death prior to the Imperium.
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The problem with that post is that there seems to be enough folks here that seem to be saying that about their choice that it becomes difficult to know if that is sarcasm or not.
“Problem is the current POTUS has lowered the bar so far almost anybody can clear it.”
True.
I’ve often pondered on how just seven years after 911 a guy named Barack Hussein Obama, born of a Muslim father, could be elected President.
There’s something wrong with the collective psyche.
Even if Obama were a great guy and conservative, not a communist and Islamist-ally, I would find it odd.
Exactly. That’s why it’s so effective.
There are dozens of Cruz folks running around who literally believe that if you don’t vote for him, then you hate Jesus and America. You can’t be a Christian if you vote for Trump. If you don’t support Cruz, then you’re denying God’s will for America. Etc. etc.
Ref:”Nothing like pimping your blog.”
I have always marked my posts as vanity in addition to news and activism. Also, I publish my articles entirely so that you never have to visit my blog. — Feel free to stop by and visit though.
V/R
Bill
Trump slams Pope Francis for questioning his faith: ‘Disgraceful’
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/269865-trump-slams-francis-over-wall
Donald Trump: No apology for questioning Ben Carson’s Seventh-day Adventist faith
clinical definition of sociopath fits Trump pretty well
Er...isn't that sort of what the "Blogger" section is for?
"Blog Pimps For Cruz"
Is this a vanity? I missed that.
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