The Wheels Are (Finally) Coming Off the Trump Campaign

The Fiscal Times ^ | 11/13 | Rob Garver

[TangledUpInBlue]

It took longer than almost anybody expected, but on Thursday night, it looked as though the wheels were finally starting to come off Donald Trump’s run for the presidency. It’s too early to write his political obituary just yet – he’s shown remarkable resilience in the face of ridicule and disdain – but even Trump will have trouble recovering from a day in which he repeatedly compared his chief rival to a “child molester” and invited attendees at a campaign event to bring a knife up on stage and try to stab him.

Trump has been aggressively attacking retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who has pulled even with him in national opinion polls of Republican primary voters. Last weekend, Trump’s attacks became more pointed, and he latched on to a line from Carson’s book, Gifted Hands, in which Carson described his childhood temper as “pathological.”

[Finny]

I wasn't wrong,

Then PROVE IT.

You weren't talking about Trump or politics or Cruz, you were talking about ME. Cut and paste the words in my post #219, duplicated in post #257, that made you say of me not Trump or Cruz or any other politician, but me: "... one would have to admit that the nastiness out there, and on FR, is not limited to the supporters of any one candidate. There seems to be plenty to go around. You just participated in what you say is so bad."

So PROVE it, or have that post, which I expect you wrote in anger and therefore made false personal accusations, deleted.

You talk the talk -- now walk the walk.

[dforest]

This is a dead thread. Nothing here will change a damn thing. Both of us know that and I have no personal vendetta to fight on a dead thread.

I want to win, and so do you.

We are going to win this. I just wish people would embrace the strategy.

[Finny]

Exhibit of behavior of supporters:

For any who are following this exchange, I took care to civilly reply to a singularly hostile poster who used anger and invective and personal attack in his post to a non-Trump supporter (post 215).

dforest decides that my own post calling the guy out on a political hypocrisy in that post, that I "just participated" in "nastiness."

Understand that I'm not asking for sympathy or support, I am only using this example to point out that truism: the behavior of a candidate's supporters towards the supporters of his opponents, speaks volumes about the candidate.

[Finny]

I wish people would decline to post falsehoods about other FReepers’ posting.

[dforest]

I am tired of whiners who have personal problems. You sir, have used FReepmail to contact me. I have been kind and have answered all your questions.

This here is BS to pump up your ego, not to advance Ted Cruz ot Donald trump.

This is the last time I will answer you via posts or Freepmail, that of which you contacted me. I never bothered you.

Have a nice Sunday night. I hope you feel better in the morning.

[Finny]

More to the point:

An emotional candidate -- emotional supporters. You disagree with me therefore you're not being nice.

I swear, I work so hard to refrain from outright incivility I posts. I don't always succeed, but have on this thread.

NORM -- it's really crowding in that at bottom, in the real world, Donald Trump is no more than a patriotic self-promoting celebrity billionaire businessman who became famous by hosting his own reality TV show for 7 years. He's a great showman and "real estate mogul." Up until 2011, he donated as much to Democrats (a little more, actually) as to Republicans.

And he says his health care plan, after he gets rid of Obamacare, is going to be "really, really terrific!"

*shaking head*

We're screwed until folks snap out of it.

We can Cruz to victory and liberty.

[Marcella]

To me, many Trump supporters are like, in behavior, the supporters of Obama in his first presidential election. They are in dream mode and are projecting their dream future onto Trump. They have discounted his past behavior and see him as their savior doing “wonderful”, “great” things all by himself.

If Trump wins, he will bring in other very rich people (he says he will do that) who also don't know how government works, and there will be chaos. These men do what they want when they want, without having to answer to anyone and, in order to work as the founders prescribed, there are limits of power in our laws. They will be frustrated because they can't immediately get their orders carried out. We already have a president who ignores laws and we must not have the same in the next administration.

[Vision Thing]

You are saying Trump and the businessmen who he will hire when he is president have ignored laws as merely dismissable obstacles during their entire careers?

Really?

Do you have proof?

[SamAdams76]

They have discounted his past behavior...

Such as what? Achieving and getting things done? Surrounding himself with smart, competent people and weeding out the incompetent?

Also, you seem to be making the argument for another establishment politician, who surrounds himself with cronies and plays the Washington game.

[mom.mom]

Right! The bus is airborne. It does not need wheels.

[Norm Lenhart]

It’s a replay of the PDS wars. People crapped all over the actual conservative and in doing, ended up losing with Romney, the man their game playing ended up getting the nomination.

Of course, plenty wanted him and his liberalism to begin with because they don’t actually want actual conservatism. And they prove it every election.

If people want what Trump offers, thats their call. Some of it, like immigration is great. Some of it, like his socialized medicine, is hard left. Thats a moderate by definition. And they are moderates. They should just accept what they are and fight for what they want honestly.

No conservative rejects a guy with a 97% lifetime rating in favor of a moderate. No conservative chooses winning with the things and people they oppose every other day of the year. That’s far from a radical statement. You are conservative or you arent. If you chose a moderate over the conservative, you are a moderate.

Embrace it. People don’t get to change definitions of things to make themselves feel good. That’s what liberals do and we reject it when they do it. People can stomp their feet and do whatever they like. It doesn’t change the facts.

[Finny]

And they are moderates. They should just accept what they are and fight for what they want honestly.

Yep. And apparently just pointing it out qualifies as mean-spirited.

[Norm Lenhart]

So be it. This isn’t the Mizzou campus. It’s real life.

[Finny]

"They have discounted his past behavior..."

Such as what?

Such as being so apolitically business-focused that up until a few years ago, donating equally to Democrat politicians (more, actually) than to Republican politicians.

Whether you like it or not, with his hard-earned money and up until relatively recently, Trump helped advance to power Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Chuck Schumer, Charles Rangel, and John Kerry, to name a few. He did it as the cost of doing business. He did it to increase his personal financial gain and like any good businessman, to increase shares to his stockholders.

A Republican (now politician) spending more to elect Democrats than Republicans advancing the cause of the businessman while denigrating the cause of liberty, is a bad risk.

Pardon, but no one here would ever consider voting for any other Republican politician who for decades had donated almost equally to candidates in both parties, favoring Democrats $54 to $46 "invested."

For Republicans and conservatives to cavalierly disregard such a past in a "real estate magnate" who made himself an American celebrity from his skills as a self-promoting billionaire, is a bad move.

Cruz is a smart move. Business is not Cruz's world; business should always be avoided as a political model -- businessmen exist to take an enterprise they oversee and make it grow and prosper. It's their mindset and reason for being.

A limited government politician operates on a political compass of representing those who elected him on the condition he follow a political compass that always points in the direction of starving government, making it small and limited.

Trump is a bad risk. Cruz is a good risk.

[Finny]

LOL!! Nailed it! That’s my Norm.

[SamAdams76]

Pardon, but no one here would ever consider voting for any other Republican politician who for decades had donated almost equally to candidates in both parties

True, but Trump didn't officially make himself a politician until June of this year. We should check to see what his donation history has been since. Or better, let's go back to the past couple years as I doubt Trump woke up on a sunny morning in June and said "Gee, I think I'll run for president." This run has probably been in the works at least a year ahead of him announcing. So a full accounting of his 2014 donation history would be prudent.

[SamAdams76]

Here's a chart showing Donald Trump's donation history since 1989.

Interestingly, there are no donations to Democrats since 2010. And donations to Republicans essentially went through the roof when compared to previous years.

Reasonable people will agree that when Trump was a businessman operating primarily in Democrat controlled New York City, donating to Democrats was a "business expense" or if you will, a necessary greasing of palms to get things done. None of us like that and as an ardent Trump supporter, it even leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

However, I am encouraged by the fact that Trump has given no money to the Democrats since about 2010 and has given over $500,000 to Republican since then - more money than he donated to either party during the 1989 to 2010 period (previous 21 years).

Now he's running for president as a Republican and self-funding. Does one believe in redemption? If the Republicans are going to get to be the majority party again, are they going to do it by ex-communicating all people who at one time was a Democrat or contributed to a Democrat? Bear in mind that this mindset would have prevented Ronald Reagan from being able to run as a Republican.

I think most of us forgave Ronald Reagan. We should also forgive Donald Trump.

[Finny]

What would really be prudent is counting all of it. Putting aside what he did up to a year ago in terms of political donations, is beyond risky. I can also tell you that in the research I've done, in the past four years he's kept it to Republicans. Guys like Romney.

Beyond that -- what would REALLY be prudent is to look at the bigger picture. What does it bode? Because that is where Trump's mind is -- he lacks a political compass; do some research and see his stands on nationalized health care, for example. Once upon a time, he was calling for single-payer! Long ago, but did nonetheless.

On the other hand, we have the option of voting for a guy, Cruz who has always opposed government-run health care in concept. Steady as a rock.

Trump lacks that quality entirely. His political "philosophy" is as variable as the markets, judging by his past. Cruz's political philosophy is straightforward and Constitutional.

[SamAdams76]

I think this should get a thread of it’s own. Some good discussion possible here.

[Vision Thing]

Many of the Founding Fathers were businessmen, and many of them took time off to become public servants. They got us this far.

And now that we’ve had several lawyer/politicians serving during the past several decades, you can’t be entirely honest if you claim they have left us in better shape as a nation.