Posted on 01/13/2016 4:25:57 PM PST by TBBT
It is hard not to feel protective over Donald Trump while the political classes are seething and scornful.
They are unacquainted with such powerlessness. Control was never supposed to stray this far from their grasp. And their rage, manifested in every hapless attack on Trump and his supporters, actually seems to be improving the likelihood of that outcome they fear most of all.
How tempting, under these circumstances, to rush to his defense, as so many in the conservative movement have already done. The Donald has boldly made himself a standard bearer of unpopular (…within the political bubble), yet critical policy positions concerning national security, from the urgency of immigration enforcement to the potential implications of refugee resettlement.
He has played a pivotal role in dragging these and other issues from the shadows that the media might otherwise have not been so quick to shine a light on. He has made the case against birthright citizenship, spent countless campaign hours pledging to build a wall, and talked tough to the politically correct mafia at a time when its fascistic influence has left millions of citizens feeling voiceless.
Trump’s style and substance—brazen, unapologetic and quite popular—have upended equanimity on the left, leaving the “public intellectuals†screaming over one another to denounce his absurdity, the effrontery, the horror.
(Excerpt) Read more at conservativereview.com ...
There are different standards for presidential candidates, though.
Otherwise, we'd have had President Snidely K. Whiplash.
I will not vote for anyone that Mitch or Bush or Ryan or the
like thinks is acceptable
The fact that Trump is despised by the GOPe makes me like him more
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/donald-trump-progressive-champion
The sometime reality TV star has taken these positions at disparate moments in his political career, but if we could merge these different candidates into one ultra-liberal “Franken-Trumpâ€, he could have Bernie Sanders’ guarding his left-flank. Here then, is the policy platform of Donald Trump, progressive champion:
1. Government health care for all
On Tuesday, Trump called Obamacare such a disaster, “You have to get hit by a tractor, literally, a tractor to use it.â€
Progressives might object, noting that the “hit by tractor†provision of the Affordable Care Act literally doesn’t exist. But the Democratic base would be more sympathetic to Trump’s health care proposals circa 2000.
Shortly after the Y2K scare, Trump announced his support for socialized medicine, in a campaign booklet titled, “The America We Deserveâ€.
“We must have universal health care,†Trump wrote. “We should not hear so many stories of families ruined by health care expenses.â€
He even cited Canada’s publicly funded health care system as a model worth emulating.
2. Legalize all drugs
Let’s take a trip back to 1990: “The Simpsons†was making its broadcast debut, Iraqi troops were crossing the border into Kuwait, and a thick-haired Donald Trump was telling a crowd in South Florida that “We’re losing badly the war on drugs. You have to legalize drugs to win that war. You have to take the profit away from these drug czars.â€
It would take decades for Democratic leaders like Bill Clinton to declare the drug war a mistake. Even Bernie Sanders isn’t willing to declare his support for marijuana legalization in 2015. However, Trump circa 1990 was ready to legalize everything.
In calling for the decriminalization of all narcotics, he aligned himself with the anarchist fringe of left-wing America.
3. Tax the wealth of the 1%
Fifteen years before French economist Thomas Piketty outraged conservatives with his proposal for a 2% global wealth tax, Donald Trump called for a 14.25% tax on America’s wealthiest individuals.
In 1999, Trump suggested the government collect $5.7 trillion in new revenue by levying a one-time tax on all individuals and trusts worth more than $10 million. With that revenue, Trump hoped that the federal government could cut taxes on the middle-class, and sure up Social Security funding for retirees.
Sure, Bernie Sanders has called for substantially raising the top marginal rate on income taxes, but only Trump has advocated expropriating the wealth of the capitalist class. And if inequality is your top concern, redistributing wealth is far more effective than redistributing income: According to a 2015 report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the richest 10% of American income earners take home 28% of all U.S. income; the wealthiest 10% of U.S. households own 76% of the nation’s wealth.
4. No more foreign wars
Long before the quagmire of Iraq, Donald Trump saw the folly of American military hubris, writing in 2000’s “The America We Deserve,†“If we are going to intervene in a conflict it had better pose a direct threat to our interest- one definition of ‘direct’ being a threat so obvious that most Americans will know where the hot spot is on the globe and will quickly understand why we are getting involved… At the same time, we must not get involved in a long-festering conflict for humanitarian reasons.â€
While Sanders may seem like the dove candidate of 2016, he supported the interventions in Yugoslavia and Kosovo, as well as the war in Afghanistan.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-weigant/trump-more-progressive-th_b_8068170.html
Donald Trump made a rather startling proposal last week out on the campaign trail, but few in the media noticed. Perhaps this was due to the fact that Trump says so many startling things that the media can be excused for not paying attention to all of them. Perhaps it was because it wasn’t as incendiary as many other Trump campaign promises. But for whatever reason, his words merit a lot more attention than they’re so far getting, especially from all the Democratic presidential candidates. Because, as things stand, Trump is now more progressive on this particular issue than the entire slate of Democrats.
Don’t believe me? Here is what Donald Trump had to say on one particular facet of the income inequality issue. When asked how he would revise the tax code, Trump answered:
“I would change it. I would simplify it. I would take carried interest out, and I would let people making hundreds of millions of dollars a year pay some tax, because right now they are paying very little tax and I think it’s outrageous. I want to lower taxes for the middle class.”
He was then asked whether this would mean he’d be raising taxes on himself. Trump responded:
“That’s right. That’s right. I’m OK with it. You’ve seen my statements, I do very well, I don’t mind paying some taxes. The middle class is getting clobbered in this country. You know the middle class built this country, not the hedge fund guys, but I know people in hedge funds that pay almost nothing and it’s ridiculous, OK?”
http://www.mediaite.com/online/glenn-beck-donald-trump-is-a-progressive-hes-not-a-conservative/
“Now, I don’t think Donald Trump is Barack Obama by any stretch of the imagination. But Donald Trump is a progressive. He’s not a conservative,†Beck added bluntly.
“A progressive believes in high tariffs. A progressives believes the government is the answer. Donald Trump has shown time and time again he believes the government is the problem, and if it is run properly, it is the answer. Well that’s what a progressive believes.â€
An even clearer case for Trump’s “progressive†bona fides (which FR wouldn’t let me post):
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2015/07/25/3684164/case-for-donald-trump/
A bestselling author said on Wednesday that he is not satisfied with GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump’s conservative credentials.
Brad Thor added during an extended rant against the outspoken billionaire on Twitter that Trump’s claims of a Republican conversion are farcical.
“Trump, to his core, is a progressive — period,†Thor tweeted.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/421043/donald-trump-progressive-issues
An excellent discussion of Trump’s progressive record.
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