Posted on 08/27/2015 9:12:37 AM PDT by Laissez-faire capitalist
On Sunday, ABC's George Stephanopoulos, an excellent interviewer, tried to break through the Trump persona and get some answers on something - anything! Stephanopoulos chose the sole plan listed under "Positions" on the official Trump website. It is Trump's plan for making Mexico pay for a wall on our southern border, deporting "criminal aliens" from the United States, and ending "birthright citizenship" among other complex, controversial and expensive programs. Stephanopoulos attempted to find out how Trump would carry out his plan. Specifically.
Did I say it was like wrestling an eel? It is more like punching a pillow.
"You have so many illegals. We don't even know how many," Trump said. "I hear 11 million. I hear 30 million. The government has no idea. We have lost control of our country." Specific enough for you? Stephanopoulos kept trying. He wanted fact's figures, hard numbers, real plans. Instead he got showmanship.
"George, its called management," Trump replied. The first thing we have to do is secure the border, but it's called management." ...
About six weeks ago, CNN's Anderson Cooper asked Trump whether President Obama was born in the United States. "I don't know. I really don't know," Trump replied. "I don't know why he wouldn't release his records." ...
(Excerpt) Read more at pressreader.com ...
Let's unpack that a little bit. Not good or bad, but unreliable because of institutional bias. If there were a Repub/Dem poll one would expect the DEM total to contain some padding.
So if such a poll found the Repub five points ahead, one would assume the correct number was 10 points or more ahead.
Similarly, if the WaPo/ABC poll found Trump at 40%, one would assume the correct number at least 45%.
I'm glad I could be here to explain the obvious for you.
Without deporting illegals, we are breaking our own laws.
That much is crystal clear.
It is same as saying to a bank robber “you will get amnesty because that bank has lousy customer service anyway”.
Polls, when conducted with a view to statistical accuracy, have no partisan edge. Journalists are nothing but partisan edge. Polls will show Republicans at 40%. Journalists are liberal 90% of the time.
In other words, they're like Soviet show trials.
And both Kennedy and Obama were/have been lousy presidents.
It's not inconceivable. He could slap a tariff on cross-border trade with Mexico. The US imports almost $300b a year from Mexico. A 1% tariff over 10 years would fully fund a fence.
Why, yes, now that you mention it, they are. And just like the Soviet show trials, the conservative/defendant is expected to confess guilt, offer no excuse, grovel for forgiveness and go quietly to their execution. I was amazed at how many Soviet show trial defendants meekly accepted their fate, just as GOP candidates follow their scripted part in their own destruction.
Also, look at how capricious the selection of the Soviet show trial defendants seemed to be. But it was not capricious at all. Stalin methodically eliminated his potential opposition through a calculated progression of victims in the Purges, including purging his prosecutors and secret police officials when the time was right.
And so the national democrat/communist media goes through the progression of GOP candidates, destroying first the conservatives until the select their sacrificial moderate, whom they will destroy in the Championship Show Trial called the "National Campaign."
A very good extension of the analogy.
I'm guessing there was an implicit threat to their family members. Go quietly or have your entire clan killed.
Nope. Sorry. That ain't it.
The reason the best conservative candidate is failing to resonate with the voters is he doesn't have the skills to manage the adversarial media.
The media couldn't give a fig about "informing" the American people. Trump knows that, so he doesn't even try. He turns the interview into a WWE match between himself and the "journalist," such that he gets his sound-byte while bitch slapping the "heel" (term for the bad guy in pro wrestling).
People love that.
The sad truth is a non-leftist candidate's media presence, and policies are two very different disciplines in today's environment, and a successful candidate has to be able to manage them both separately.
Very true. There are two aspects of American public life; politics and policy. Politics is how you get there, and policy is what you do when you are there. We have a system designed to elect people who are really good at politics, but don't know anything about policy except as an extension of politics. Because of the inherent media advocacy against candidates that would carry out conservative policies, it's an uphill struggle to get those candidates elected. If the media reported objectively to the electorate, we would have elected officials adept at both.
"It's not inconceivable. He could slap a tariff on cross-border trade with Mexico. The US imports almost $300b a year from Mexico. A 1% tariff over 10 years would fully fund a fence."
That's one good way. It would sure be entertaining too, watching Kudlow and the rest of the fat-cat (R)epublicrats who couldn't care less about Constitution or Conservatives, they just want our votes in order to elect an (R) to implement America destroying policies approved by the Chamber of Commerce.
Another way is to charge tolls! Seriously. They are used on every damn bridge around the USA, especially in NYC, and that could pay for maintenance plus many other things ...
Finally, for some real outside-the-box thinking, how about War Wall Bonds!. I'm surprised that no-one else has thought of it. Talk about an investment that would really sell. People are madly looking for things to invest in. This would be a huge success ...
Enough of this Can't Do nonsense. That is not the historical American way.
In America, we Can Do!
>> "His answers to me seem to be "Yada, Yada, Yada........We build a wall. "Yada, Yada, Yada........We get jobs back from China."
"He stayed on message. That is what a good politician does."
"The Donald refrains from falling into the same Steph trap that got Mitt."
"And what answers do you see from the rest of the field that are so deep and detailed?"
Correct! Ambiguity is high level strategic thinking, it is a very good thing. We've had nothing but political technicians with encyclopedias full of plans and details, and none of them ever get followed to the letter because of future variables and unknowns.
Helmuth von Moltke the Elder: Theory Of War ... "Moltke's main thesis was that military strategy had to be understood as a system of options since only the beginning of a military operation was plannable. As a result, he considered the main task of military leaders to consist in the extensive preparation of all possible outcomes. His thesis can be summed up by two statements, one famous and one less so, translated into English as "No plan of operations extends with certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy's main strength" (or "no plan survives contact with the enemy")[3] and "Strategy is a system of expedients"."
This belief has become apocryphal and is better known today as "No plan survives the battlefield". It is pure, clinical, logical thinking. And most important: it is HONEST. In poker you have: "keep your cards close to your vest" and in war: "Loose lips sink ships". All of them are sound advice, especially in a political world war as full of "gotchas" as this one is.
If this is Trump's operating theory ( I never read his books so I cannot say ), then more power to him. He is doing you and I and everyone else a favor by not building up false hopes and not burning up time wasted on meaningless details that will never see the light of day.
Hopefully there is a small minority of voters that for some crazy reason want to get mired down in details. It is far better that the 'leader' sets the agenda and the big picture items and then rounds up the proper people to see this through. He also must be vigilant enough to watch over them and FIRE them when they fail. Who does this sound like? That *is* Trump in a nutshell, and he indeed appears to have leadership qualities.
I have to point his out, in 1980 Reagan had big non-specific plans. Creating jobs, tax cuts, military rebuilding, restoring the American spirit ( 'our best days are in front of us' ). If he had specific details on the campaign trail in 1980 can anyone seriously imagine that *any*, I mean even a single one would have played out as designed? Hell no.
People that are saying that they want a political technician are IMHO frauds just looking for some lame reason to bash Trump just as they did with Gingrich in 1994. But these people don't need to look very far. You have Bush and Rubio who are more than happy to oblige this desire by swamping their voters with pages of meaningless details, none that will ever see the light of day because they will capitulate once they hit their first cocktail party.
So, you think mainly the elderly watched that Presidential Debate? Dunno about that, it had a viewership of 24 million.
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