Posted on 01/22/2016 7:51:23 AM PST by conservativejoy
Those of us who like to believe that human beings are rational can sometimes have a hard time trying to explain what is going on in politics. It is still a puzzle to me how millions of patriotic Americans could have voted in 2008 for a man who for 20 years - TWENTY YEARS - was a follower of a preacher who poured out his hatred for America in the most gross gutter terms.
Today's big puzzle is how so many otherwise rational people have become enamored of Donald Trump, projecting onto him virtues and principles that he clearly does not have, and ignoring gross defects that are all too blatant.
There was a time when someone who publicly mocked a handicapped man would have told us all we needed to know about his character, and his political fling would have been over. But that was before we became a society where common decency is optional.
Yet there are even a few people with strong conservative principles who have lined up with this man, whose history has demonstrated no principles at all, other than an ability to make self-serving deals, and who has shown what Thorstein Veblen once called "a versatility of convictions."
With the Iowa caucuses coming up, it is easy to understand why Iowa governor Terry Branstad is slamming Trump's chief rival, Senator Ted Cruz, who has opposed massive government subsidies to ethanol, which have dumped tons of taxpayer money on Iowa for growing corn. Iowa's Senator Charles Grassley has come right out and said that is why he opposes Senator Cruz.
Former Senator Bob Dole, an establishment Republican if ever there was one, has joined the attacks on Ted Cruz, on grounds that Senator Cruz is disliked by other politicians.
When Senator Dole was active, he was liked by both Democrats and Republicans. He joined the long list of likable Republican candidates for president that the Republican establishment chose - and that the voters roundly rejected.
With both establishment Republicans and anti-establishment Republicans now taking sides with Donald Trump, it is hard to see what principle - if any - is behind his support.
Some may see Trump's success in business as a sign that he can manage the economy. But the great economist David Ricardo, two centuries ago, pointed out that business success did not mean that someone understands economic issues facing a nation.
Trump boasts that he can make deals, among his many other boasts. But is a deal-maker what this country needs at this crucial time? Is not one of the biggest criticisms of today's Congressional Republicans that they have made all too many deals with Democrats, betraying the principles on which they ran for office?
Bipartisan deals - so beloved by media pundits - have produced some of the great disasters in American history.
Contrary to the widespread view that the Great Depression of the 1930s was caused by the stock market crash of 1929, unemployment never reached double digits in any of the 12 months that followed the stock market crash in October, 1929.
Unemployment was 6.3 percent in June 1930 when a Democratic Congress and a Republican president made a bipartisan deal that produced the Smoot-Hawley tariffs. Within 6 months, unemployment hit double digits - and stayed in double digits throughout the entire decade of the 1930s.
You want deals? There was never a more politically successful deal than that which Neville Chamberlain made in Munich in 1938. He was hailed as a hero, not only by his own party but even by opposition parties, when he returned with a deal that Chamberlain said meant "peace for our time." But, just one year later, the biggest, bloodiest and most ghastly war in history began.
If deal-making is your standard, didn't Barack Obama just make a deal with Iran - one that may have bigger and worse consequences than Chamberlain's deal?
What kind of deals would Donald Trump make? He has already praised the Supreme Court's decision in "Kelo v. City of New London" which said that the government can seize private property to turn it over to another private party.
That kind of decision is good for an operator like Donald Trump. Doubtless other decisions that he would make as president would also be good for Donald Trump, even if for nobody else.
Perhaps because we're tired of getting screwed over by career politicians who will say anything to get elected, and the second they do they turn RINO on us. Heck, McCain didn't even wait for the election to turn RINO.. he started to praise Obama and said Obama would make a great president. Well.. he was wrong.
I have had it with Politicians who just screw us. What has the REPUBLICAN Congress done except screw us? Time to try a business man. I hope it starts a trend.
And here I thought Sowell was taking a pause on his anti-Trump crusade.
Lost me right there. He wasn't making fun of a handicapped man. He was making fun of a leftist reporter who denied what he himself had reported. The fact that Sowell repeats this leftist meme shows he's not thinking about the issue.
He was mocking the man’s handicap. If he wanted to criticize what the man said, he could have done that without mocking the man’s disability.
People voted for Oboma because he'd be the first black president. It made him a celebrity. His devastating history didn't matter.
Donald Trump had a TV reality show. He, like oboma, is running as a celebrity. His far left wing progressive history doesn't matter any more than obomas did.
People like voting for celebrities. They think maybe someday they could get a thank you card with an autograph.
I have always thought that when Thomas Sowell is ignored and lampooned, we will be turning a ugly corner.
Why not? Germany did it in 1932.....the people are/were starved for "THE ONE" who would save them, deja vu.
We also saw that same mentality in 2008 with the "other One".
I want no more part of that "Crowd movement" mentality going down the primrose path.
TED CRUZ 2016.
Agree. Mr. Sowell is a man who understands history and every point about deals is spot on.
I want to comment on this too, I believe Trump did mock a handicap, but it was to a reporter who had confronted him. Trump does not take confrontation and ignore it. However, I am tired of the poisoning of the atmosphere every time a sensitivity is not observed. Where has political correctness taken our society? Now we have to be non-offensive to partisans in our midst who secretly work to undermine our society and convert our freedom because it offends them to see how we live and what we eat.
Trump is getting our support because this has gone too far. To paraphrase Marilyn Vos Savant, “Political sensitivity is about trying to be aware of and not offend the feelings of those who are around you. Political correctness is when you really believe all that cr*p”.
Celebrity blinded people to the real oboma. Those who looked past the celebrity status saw oboma for what he really was.
Now, people are blinded by Trump and his reality shows. People who are aware of Trumps political history right up until he decided to run for the presidency are once again trying to get people to look past their remote controls and Trumps golden ties.
Time will tell whether we're successful or not. You'd think people would have learned their lesson for the oboma campaign. It appears they haven't.
Lost me right there. Whether he was mocking a handicap is unclear from the video. But what IS clear and why the reporter was even relevant is that the reporter denied reporting something he had written. In that context Trumps "impersonation" makes perfect sense.
But, like it or not, that’s what the masses have wanted since JFK, they want the “Rock Star” President.
He didn’t know the reporter was disabled.
Uhoh... Sowell has done it now...
Individual thinkers saw the real Obama......that's for sure. Yet is was the "Masses" that gave that monster to us, as did Germany in 1932......
It would be a good lesson on FR....to put a link of videos showing Germany's 1932 massive Celebrity adulation crowds as they praise "the ONE"......very enlightening and I'm sure many have never seen that history. It is a need to know at this point for comparison.
View the video with our now America "Celebrity Star movement" in our very on 2016 election. See the resemblance? Scary.
Yep. Donald Trump is as famous as the kardashians. They both had reality shows on TV. Go Trump!
Maybe he could choose one of those ladies as his VP. He'd win in a landslide.
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