Posted on 04/03/2011 12:53:30 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Donald Trump will announce in June whether he plans on being a contender for the presidency in the Republican primaries later this year. For several reasons, my excitement over the prospects of a Trump candidacy is mounting.
Let me say first, that in a perfect world, the very idea of a man like Trump running for the presidency, on either party's ticket, would be unthinkable. This isn't to suggest that Trump is a bad man, but only that he has no experience in the art of governing. It is a common misconception among many on the right that success in business is likely to translate into success in politics. Not only does this assumption ignore the fact that the frameworks of incentives and constraints within which politicians and free enterprisers respectively operate are by and large mutually antagonistic; it ignores as well the fact that success in business could just as easily portend political failure.
Any business is an enterprise. An enterprise is defined by the goals toward which it is oriented, the goals toward the realization of which each of its members is expected to contribute. Now, obviously, the enterprises that constitute a "system" of "free enterprise" are not compulsory organizations. However, a state is indeed such an organization. It is a mistake of the first order, then, to confuse government with a private employer and citizens with employees.
Free citizens must be free to determine enterprises of their own choosing -- not those that the government decides to impose upon them. And what this in turn implies is that a government belonging to citizens, not subjects, free men and women, not servants and/or slaves, simply cannot be patterned on a business or enterprise model, for it exists for no other reason than to facilitate peaceful and orderly co-existence between individuals engaged in all manner of self-chosen pursuits.
A wildly successful businessman like Trump is no less likely to lose sight of this than someone devoid of all business experience.
There is another reason why, in a perfect world, no conservative would treat Trump with any seriousness in connection with the presidency -- namely, Trump is no conservative. That "business" and "conservative" are considered virtually synonymous terms by right and left alike is a standing testimony to how effectively the left trades in fictions. A person's involvement in business is no signifier of his political orientation, it is true, but it is also true that the tycoons of the largest businesses -- what the left derisively refers to as "Big Business" -- usually donate to Democrats. That he has contributed to the coffers of no small number of Democratic politicians proves that Trump is no exception to this rule.
Still, our world, the real world, is far from perfect. Given current political realities, Trump may be just what Republican voters need at the moment.
As Trump himself has noted, if not for pervasive voter disenchantment with President George W. Bush, we wouldn't now have President Barack. H. Obama. In 2008, voters in both major parties and everywhere in between had grown weary of Bush's "compassionate conservatism." Of course, being but a euphemism for ever larger government -- that is, exactly that thing against which Republican campaign rhetoric rails -- it was neither compassionate nor conservative, as conservatives understand these concepts. The Republican Party claimed to have learned this lesson, but beyond vague references to "spending," no GOP 2012 hopeful has so much as explicitly repudiated Bush "conservatism," much less specified the respects in which their governance will differ from that of the last Republican president.
Trump, in glaring contrast, has already indicated the willingness, the eagerness even, to make it abundantly clear to both the party and the nation how and why he will be no Bush Republican. This the party faithful and -- more importantly, to hear the Republicans tell it -- the independents and "moderates" regarding whom the politicians from both parties spare no occasion to woo both need and deserve to know.
But this is not all.
It would be a gross understatement to describe The View as Obama-friendly. Yet just this past week while making an appearance on it, Trump did what no other Republican, much less a Republican with presidential aspirations, would so much as think of doing: he unabashedly expressed his skepticism concerning Obama's birth certificate. With a single utterance, the Donald in effect legitimized a group of people whose concern for this very same issue earned them the scornful name of "birthers" and rendered them a collective object of derision by left-wing pundits as well as such "respectable" right-leaning personalities as Bill O'Reilly and Michael Medved. And what Trump did for this issue, he will be able to do with any number of issues that McCain and the GOP establishment sought (and continue to seek) to avoid like the plague.
This is the point: there is simply no way that anyone can succeed in depicting someone as internationally famous as Donald Trump as a fringe figure. This, obviously, isn't to suggest that Trump would be anything at all like an invulnerable candidate; no one is without weaknesses. But Trump's enemies (among the establishments of both parties) will simply not be able to dismiss him as an "extremist."
Finally, there are enough disenchanted Democrats, along with similarly disenchanted independents and Republicans, who would be more than willing to give Trump their ears. When this Washington outsider -- indeed, outsider to politics! -- promises that upon his election to the presidency, "business as usual" in Washington will become a thing of the past, they will have good reason to believe it.
Trump in 2012? This may not be such a bad thing.
This isn't tinfoil hat stuff, obama really does have trolls infiltrating the conservative base in order to damage the candidates.
IMO Trump is the real deal and can beat Obama!!!
Oh please. You know what if you are gong to put up an immoral person for our Republican candidate than everyone deserves what is coming to us. Same crap was said about McCain. I refuse to allow myself to vote for someone who is not conservative. Sick of it and sick of RINOs around here trying to force someone that is not conservative.
Those of us who can remember back as far as 1992 will recognize the overwhelming resemblance to the way that Perot portrayed himself.
Seem to be a lot of Freepers who can see through Huck, Mitt, McQueeg, Rudy et al., are willing to try a big ol' glass of Trump Koolaid. I have to think it's because they are starting to fear that Palin won't run.
You have all libs running now minus Haley Barbour. I would take Trump / Bachmann over them any day of the week!!!
Our goal should be defeating Obama and retaking the country and not worrying on marriages.
Like I said there are sleepers from the Obama Team who call into talk radio and have been sleeping on websites like FR. You sure as hell sound like a sleeper to me.
Tell Obama to not come back to Chicago, our sports teams have done much better since he left.
If it's Trump or your toaster, I think our votes will cancel out.
Morality is the root problem. You don’t solve the problems with a immoral man.
Trump would be a nothing here on FR had he not rung Pavlov's bell by bringing up the birth certificate issue.
So, I guess Limbaugh is on your no listen list?
Agreed. I fully support Trump for being a pitbull right now. But for POTUS? No, his 2nd Amendment history is a complete non-starter. Doesn't mean we can't cheer on a guy who is 60% with us and whose jaws are clamped down on the leg of the enemy.
http://www.issues2000.org/celeb/Donald_Trump_Abortion.htm
Limbaugh is not running for President. Stop reaching. Here are Trumps issues and heck if I vote for a guy who is pro-choice too.....In 2000 he was a pro-choice guy. Not suddenly he reinvented himself as a pro-life and you guys are giving him a pass. I will stay with Sarah who has never been phony.
And I’d like to see the look on the Congressional leaders faces the first time they send him a 2000 page bill, and he sends it back and tells them to cut it down to ten pages and he MIGHT sign it!That might be the most important argument for Trump right there. And I'm not saying I support Trump. I don't. I support Palin.
But what you say is true. I can imagine Trump doing that.
Would any of the current "Republicans" in congress do it? Maybe 10 or so would. Maybe 5.
But you KNOW Trump is capable of doing it.
I doubt that. The BC issue is just what he's talked about most recently. He'll gain far more interest talking about lost American economic might and the stupid, one-sided trade deals with China and other nations. Those were the first things he talked about, and what will interest the most voters.
We are hiring a potus not a pastor. And again ayeres, organizing for america, msnbc, wright, et al appreciate your 100 percenter attitude.
Oh brother. A sleeper because I won’t vote for a liberal Republican. Give me a break. Grow up. I will vote for Sarah Palin a true conservative who does not change her issues depending on the wind.
Here is your faux republican’s issues right here in plain english.http://www.issues2000.org/celeb/Donald_Trump_Abortion.htm
http://www.issues2000.org/celeb/Donald_Trump_Abortion.htm
Can we at least have someone who is not an opportunist. We have a guy who is changing his views because he knows that in 2012 you can’t be pro-choice but in 2000 he sure was. I feel like I am in the twilight zone. You guys are voting for a liberal??????
Ridiculous. Truly absurd. No wonder we have obama as potus.
So, three marriages are fine for influential talk show hosts, but they rule out presidential candidates? What about two marriages, such as Gingrich, McCain and I'm sure many other politicians?
Maybe you need to supply a list of what positions three marriages are disqualifying, and for what positions they are acceptable.
I think the number of marriages are one factor one might consider along with many other factors, which then have to be weighed against many factors concerning other candidates.
Ok. I factored in Trumps three marriages, his changing views on abortion at a suspected time and his anti-gun support until of course 2012. Ok. Done. I will vote for Sarah. Thanks. That was fun.
Palin said she was for a cap on CO2, flipped on amnesty, and a bunch of others.
And again - when obamao gets a second term because sarah did not get elected, I will blame you as much as the worst of the obama cult who showed up to vote for four more years of this insane admn.
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