Posted on 02/28/2016 6:00:35 AM PST by Kaslin
There he was, stripped bare and standing in the middle of the debate stage. Donald Trump was eviscerated in Thursday's debate. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz took turns pummeling the founder of Trump University with his own words, his own history, and delivering body blow after body blow.
It was more than enough to convince any thinking person he was not a serious candidate for president. But Trump isn't your typical presidential candidate. He's Barack Obama-light, in every sense of the term.
What does Donald Trump stand for? What will he do if elected? What core conservative principle will he advance?
If you're being honest, the answer to each of those questions is you have no idea.
Don't feel bad, neither does he.
That's not entirely true. He was fairly unambiguous about one thing he'd like to do: change the law so he can sue newspapers. When it comes to solutions to the nation's problems, Donald Trump is the equivalent of a constitutional dumpster fire; and that's just fine to his worshipers.
The day after being embarrassed in front of the world, in part because of the lack of specifics he's provided as to what he would do as president, Trump held a press conference to get specific - or at least specific-ish - about this proposal. He said:
"One of the things I'm going to do, and this is going to make it tougher for me...but one of the things I'm going to do if I win...is I'm going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money. We're going to open up those libel laws. So that when the New York Times writes a hit piece, which is a total disgrace, or when the Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they're totally protected."
By the way, the reason "they're totally protected" right now is the First Amendment, that whole "Congress shall make no law" bit about freedom of the press. But who cares? Right, Trump fans?
It's the same stifling of speech outraging conservatives on college campuses; only it's Trump advancing it. If it's fascism when a student group proposes it, what is it when a billionaire does?
His supporters don't bother with strings of words ending in question marks. Their kryptonite is a simple "How?" or the dreaded "What?"
What does Donald Trump want to do as president? There is no answer yet articulated that wouldn't fit nicely on a bumper sticker. He wants to "make American great again," or "build a wall," or "destroy ISIS," etc., etc. How?
He has no answer. He makes proclamations like a dime store Juan Perón. Only he has no clue how a president must work with Congress to create or change laws. Trump supporters appear content to adopt the Barack Obama model of rule by executive fiat. They don't mind a despot as long as he's their despot.
Trump's "specifics," such as they are, about his signature talking point is a wall that grows by 10 feet each time Mexican officials say they won't pay for it. It's at least 30 feet higher than when it started, but we're no closer to learning how it will be paid for. It just will be...apparently.
Cheerleaders aren't even bothered by the fact that on his signature issue, immigration, he's imported workers rather than hire Americans. His claim of it being "impossible" to find Americans to do his jobs is right out of the liberal playbook of "jobs Americans won't do" for illegal aliens.
His supporters don't give a damn about his hypocrisy any more than Hillary Clinton's, Barack Obama's or Al Gore's do.
They love he's "self-funding" his campaign because he "can't be bought." Do they think that will hold? A general election will cost at least $1 billion. Will Donald Trump mortgage his business on the possibility that, after alienating more than half the GOP, he'll win?
He doesn't have a billion in cash lying around. Since he's hiding his tax returns, most likely because he's not nearly as rich as he claims (he's sued over that before and lost), there's little chance he'd be able to fund a tenth of a general election campaign.
He's gotten this far through free media. Sure, he's spent a few million once he absolutely had to, but the majority of his exposure comes from the cable networks taking every speech of his live, allowing him to phone in whenever he wants and being willing to broadcast any sycophant wannabe Trump staffer representing him unchallenged. Against Hillary Clinton that ends. He will need money, money he doesn't have.
He does have rich friends, and those friends would love to have a friend in the White House. And not because they'd find it "cool" to sleep in the Lincoln bedroom.
When Rubio and Cruz exposed Donald Trump's inability to explain what he'd do, and how, on any issue beyond his memorized bumper stickers, they did the country a great service. Unfortunately, blinded by anger and hatred, his devotees refuse to see their emperor has no clothes, nor clue.
There is no issue on which you can find Donald Trump speaking eloquently, passionately, and with any detail that doesn't involve his poll numbers or his wealth. We have only his word to go on about his wealth, and his word has not always been accurate. That people are willing to believe him, unchallenged, and take offense when others do challenge him, is the mentality that has led to dark places in world history.
Scapegoating is a powerful weapon of manipulation, and Trump deploys it better than anyone in 80+ years. His followers want to "burn it all down," so they're willing to blindly follow a pied piper down a very dangerous path. If they refuse to open their eyes, the dumpster fire they're franticly cheering will burn them down eventually too.
PS: I urge you to watch this video, any part of it, and try to spot a coherent or even complete sentence from Trump. It's the ramblings of a man unhinged and incapable of serious or important discussion of any issue facing the country. It may make you laugh, but does it inspire? Is it remotely presidential?
Yup. True that.
They will demonstrate the point of this article on this very thread!
"more than enough to convince any thinking person"
What if they aren't?
The elites still don’t get it.
They are as far removed from knowing what the public wants as the nobility was at Versailles in 1789.
The election of Trump is the French Revolution sans guillotine.
Long live the people!
All the rest can be sorted out later.
FReepers already know how Trumpeters will respond. New posts to you.
In before the raging.
....maybe.
1) Post sneering article about Trump from the usual sources.
2) First comment “Duuuuuur they wont care, they be the cultists”
3)Feign shock that openly insulting people, and belittling their candidate choice, actually evokes negative replies.
4) see that it earns Rubio no votes, because you have all but abandoned Cruz.
5) Repeat
“Is it remotely presidential?”
No, as defined by our presidents for the past 30 years, thank God it’s not presidential.
A “hinged” viewpoint (vs. many of the totally “unhinged” that are out there):
How the GOP’s unhinged debate diminished both Donald Trump and Marco Rubio
http://theweek.com/articles/608667/how-gops-unhinged-debate-diminished-both-donald-trump-marco-rubio
Excerpt:
Let’s begin with Donald Trump, far and away the strongest contender, be it in Ted Cruz’s backyard or Marco Rubio’s home state. For the first time, he met his rhetorical match in a surprisingly vitriolic Rubio. The Florida senator devoted himself to going shout-for-shout with Trump, dragging out old scandals and unseemly details that put the mogul’s present-day promises in an unflattering light. But even when Trump visibly ground his gears, he stayed characteristically unflappable. He’s got a big enough cushion to risk staying the course. Although he lost the initiative last night, the game was not changed.
From the look on Rubio’s face, however, you’d think there was a revolution onstage. With every attack on Trump, he preened and puffed. When Trump and Cruz mixed it up, Rubio visibly itched to squeeze in another zinger, another bullet point, another piece of evidence that he had graduated to the big leagues. (Those monitoring media Twitter might have felt the hovering presence of political helicopter parents — established Rubio backers doling out anxious attaboys from the sidelines.)
Without a doubt, Rubio wins debates, and he won Thursday’s contest, as the media, the focus groups, and the insiders will tell you. His scores, however, have yet to translate into a commensurate clutch of delegates. In this lopsided but unstable race, that might change. But I wouldn’t bet on it.
Trump is killing with people that employee others, with people that pay the top tax rate, the people that bear the brunt of dopey over-regulation. This guy talks about stuff he doesn’t do stuff. He doesn’t know anything about the real word. There are a million stories out there like this one:
Derek Hunter has a diverse work history. He moved to Baltimore in 2001 for a job in the bookstore at the Heritage Foundation. After some time in the bookstore, he became a research assistant, then a research associate for health care at Heritage, a press secretary in the US Senate for Conrad Burns, a telecom and education analyst for Americans for Tax Reform and helped start The Daily Caller with Tucker Carlson and Neil Patel. At Heritage and ATR he hosted weekly live podcasts as well as his own for a happy hour he and a friend started that quickly became a must attend event. The First Friday Happy Hour featured guests such as Christopher Hitchens, Newt Gingrich, Grover Norquist, Andrew Breitbart, Ralph Reed, Michael Steele, Ann Coulter and many more.
In between policy and podcasting work, Derek became a weekly columnist for Townhall.com, a contributor to Breitbart News, an election blogger for the New York Daily News. His writing has been cited or appeared in more than 150 newspapers, including The New York Times, Forbes, The Washington Times, Washington Examiner, Detroit Free Press, The Baltimore Sun and many others.
Something I hadn’t noticed before — Trump uses the same (incomplete) sentence structure my mother-in-law did when she talked about picking berries as a child.
She was 95 at the time and could go on for an hour or two about it without ever completing a sentence.
Yes, throw another grenade in the mess tent without so much as an “Allahu Akbar” why don’t you?
Change.......just without the hope.
LOL! This particular Media trout took the bait, and buried the hook in his stomach.
Instead of pumping up the GOPe foam-boy, young Derek is whimpering about an impossibility, JUST AS TRUMP PLANNED.
It's like taking candy from a STUPID baby. :)
Marco "Gang of Eight PRO-AMNESTY BILL" Rubio Gads! Thanks for the GREAT graphic! :)
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