Posted on 10/24/2015 10:06:50 AM PDT by Kaslin
ARE YOU crazy about Barack Obama? Do you fervently hope the next president of the United States will be as similar to the current president as possible?
Then Donald Trump may be the candidate for you.
Of all the candidates running for president, the one who most resembles the incumbent is not Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders or Martin O'Malley. To be sure, the Democrats' policy views largely overlap with Obama's. But when it comes to attitude and self-image, it's Obama and Trump who are birds of a feather.
Everyone knows about Donald Trump's bottomless narcissism; this is a man who has affixed the name "Trump" to everything from hotels to golf courses to cologne. Asked the other day which world leaders he would reach out to upon being elected, Trump replied that he wouldn't need to call anyone: "I think I'd probably have them call me."
But Obama's march to the White House also involved startling displays of self-glorification, from Greek-style columns to a triumphal foreign tour to his own official seal (complete with Latin motto). From the earliest days of his presidency, it was clear that Obama was deeply enamored of himself, and had no doubt that the rest of the planet was just as smitten. "I am well aware," he told the UN General Assembly, "of the expectations that accompany my presidency around the world." He gifted the queen of England with an iPod that included his own speeches. Obama's addiction to the first-person singular pronoun — "I," "me," "my" — has been remarked on by many; he has even referred to "my military" and the troops "fighting on my behalf."
Anyone who finds such vanity attractive should relish the prospect of a Trump presidency. Trump, after all, never doubts his own brilliance. He's always the smartest person in the room; just ask him. Sound familiar?
"I'm a better speechwriter than my speechwriters," Obama told campaign aides in 2008. "I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that I'm gonna think I'm a better political director than my political director."
When a presidential candidate talks that way, what could possibly go wrong?
>> So what does it mean to BE the “excellent property management company”? <<
I agree with you. It means nothing.
It’s googlable.
Trump is the ONLY qualified person running for President. He has the sense of organization, picking the right people for the right job, an inherent talent for making failure into success and the most important quality of all, he is confident in his abilities which counts for a great deal. He will NOT be dictated to by the KINGMAKERS who have been destroying our country for their own selfish GREED for years. I believe we need someone to break the mold just as Reagan did. He is not perfect, but he is the best QUALIFIED. AND I believe he is a PATRIOT and not a TRAITOR like the one who presently occupies the White House and the one who aspires to it on the Democrat side. Nobody on the Republican side is as strong as Trump.Nobody is free of the shackles of one or another of the groups that have been driving our country to rack and ruin for years. We do not need a weakling politician who owes his success to the Establishment. The country is waking up and seeing how we have been sold down the river by our elected officials. We the people are in the process of throwing off our chains. We are tired of liars who promise they are gong to change the direction of our country but in spite of giving them the House AND the Senate, simply DO NOTHING for Americans!Trump WILL AT LEAST TRY to get us back on the right track and if he tries he will at least partly succeed. He also will have a PEN and a PHONE!
It was sold as being an investment plan, even though it was built to work like an entitlement would (the first beneficiaries didn’t chip in anything, this was not a growing investment plan).
The math was there for a while to work out in the long run as an investment plan, if a rather poor one. It worked those people as sheep by providing unearned and uninvested income to others. Demographics have hurt it badly.
Frankly the thing I don’t like about it the most is that it has elbowed away the idea of actual charity to people in such circumstances. FDR hawked it to churches along the lines of charity, and many bought in, not understanding the economics of Christian benevolence.
Can Trump be part of a refactoring of the problem to manageable proportions, moving back towards a privatization plan. I think he could.
From what site, sitetest. Why rely on it. On the internet nobody knows you are a dog.
/sarc!
It depends on what you mean by “count.” Your word, not mine.
Growing a large fortune from a large fortune is less of an accomplishment than growing it from scratch,
But it’s more of an accomplishment than fritter ing a fortune away. And that has often happened to heirs of large fortunes, and trump has NOT done that.
That would be 1/2 of his brain tied behind his back.
Well Molly he at least seems to be promising to bring a different perspective. It is unabashedly populist, as in let’s negotiate something. The idea isn’t strange and new, as in the Contract with America, except with Trump there is more negotiation in it rather than a charter of wooden promises.
There is no guarantee of success. There never is in this sinful world. But it encourages me that the fed up people of America are possibly going to have a voice again and are hearing that there are choices other than having to wallow in a socialist dystopia trying to get your own before someone else does. I think that is an honorable thing.
But your concept.
Absolutely wrong.
Barack Obama was a rejected child, hardcore by his father who had absolutely nothing to do with him and was not in any way at all even tangentially in his life (until age 10 where they met briefly at an airport), and even harder core by his teen mother, who chose at the last moment to not give him up for adoption and probably adored him until he became inconvenient for her, at a crucial time in his life, when she sent him 10,000 miles away for the rest of his childhood.
Then he was cared for by Typical White Granny and shiftless unemployed commie Pops, who had the great idea to turn the 11 year old boy over to a mentor with the same skin color. Who happened to be even more of a communist, and a bisexual pedophile as well.
Obama’s ego stems from a deep insecurity, the most primal. He wasn’t wanted. He also was never taught much morality, and spent a lot of time being dishonest. He was dishonest in just about all things as he grew up. His craving to be important will never be satisfied and he sold his soul for it more than once. He has little connection to family and, ironically, no connection to country.
A person with Obama’s psychological profile is not fit to be any kind of leader or have any position of influence.
Although Trump is not Jewish, he has what I call the Jewish son syndrome. He was beloved by his parents, and his self as reflected back through their eyes may have appeared pretty fantastic to him. They may have not found enough fault in him. Some people who grow up being told THEIR poop does not stink become the various a-holes you deal with out there in the world. In Trump’s example, he has been indefatigable throughout his life, has shown love for family and country, has made incredible gains overall blessings he started with, and has learned and grown both morally anD socially with age. Some of his ego is due to smugness, but a lot is earned by his accomplishments and smarts.
They both show bravado. But the underlying reasons are nearly polar opposite.
>> you’re discounting all the work an expertise that goes into maintaining such large holdings <<
Not my intent.
On the other hand, there are thousands of “large holdings” in the USA. Most get maintained in one way or another. So the expertise isn’t necessarily the rarest of abilities. I’d say there’s lotsa talent for that sort of thing.
Anyway, I’m certainly not saying that “anybody can do it” — but rather that it’s just one among many other valuable skills that abound in a free-market economy. Moreover, somebody who is a whiz in property management may well be a flop in other pursuits.
Google is your friend. In his first bankruptcy, if I recall correctly, the bulk of his own fortune was on the table. He learned from that, and never allowed it again. In the meanwhile, to restart, he borrowed money from his sibs. Why not? They had a lot of money.
I don’t know what were the terms, but I’d guess he cut them in for a share of what he eventually made, so I guess they were amply rewarded for their risk.
>> Can Trump be part of a refactoring of the problem to manageable proportions, moving back towards a privatization plan. I think he could <<
Once he puts forth serious plans for reforming at least the “big three” entitlements, they will be worth a look. But so far, I think Trump is dangerously near Huckabee territory in refusing to come to grips with the issues.
“Jewish son syndrome.”
Heh heh. The Lord has blessed the Jews greatly but, because man is a fallen being, this tends to get taken as personal privilege sooner or later. Then down things slide till the people get the Lord’s point again, and the cycle restarts.
I hope he gets the Jewish Son syndrome. Salvation.
NO, Social Security is NOT an Entitlement. The people who paid into it over their entire working life including the funds paid by the employers are being paid back a fraction of what they would have received if they had been allowed to invest their own money. Entitlements are funds paid to people who never worked for what they receive. Entitlements are disgusting!
Trump has said he’s holding back on some of his plans. I don’t think they are soup yet. They are not ready to be soup. This is at least consistent with the negotiation model, which Huck did not proffer.
If Trump wants to be the king of not-waste in America (which frankly is probably the key to being great, its people tend to know how to do that themselves if their financial and moral resources are not flushed down a hole by malefactors) the question will force itself.
Molly, watch it. There are special “disability” SS benefits that aren’t (or are less) dependent on what you paid in. The program bears aspects of both investment and entitlement. The entitlement part really needs to go back on the shoulders of outright charity.
Maybe. Maybe not. His parents sent him away to boarding school. You don't get as edgy and combative as Donald is without having some kind of chip on your shoulder. I suspect there's some anger underneath.
I don’t really know about that assertion,
IN the past, when he has seen a problem he’s thought to use big government to fix it. Whether it’s his crony capitalism, the use of eminent domain for private purposes, or single-payer for healthcare, or a wealth tax to make up for legislators’ profligacy, or additional background checks, longer waiting periods, and weapons bans to counter gun violence, he has a multi-decade history of reaching for government to solve social priblems.
Now there are claims he’s now a conservative. But has he really lost the seemingly instinctive reach for government as the solution of choice? And you want to give him the biggest governmental club in human history?? Yikes.
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