Trump was a registered democrat August 2001 - September 2009. And don't give me the Reagan was a democrat. routine There was a period of decades before he became POTUS. Not just 6 years ago.
Not one Trumpet has explained with any plausibility that Trump won't revert and flip flop to previous positions. As far as I am concerned he can't be trusted.
“Not one Trumpet has explained with any plausibility that Trump won’t revert and flip flop to previous positions. “
He’s not beholden to a single donor.
Whoever has stopped Cruz from being strong on illegal immigration, particularly the illegals here and H1Bs, has the purse strings. They’ll expect payback. He’s finally just now come out somewhat stronger, yet still vague about the illegals here. For someone so articulate and usually conservative, this is extremely worrisome.
Trump isn't a lefty of any stripe.
“Not one Trumpet has explained with any plausibility that Trump won’t revert and flip flop to previous positions. As far as I am concerned he can’t be trusted.”
I’ll have a stab. You can accept it as plausible or not, as you like. First, it’s important to point out the Trump was a Republican first, in the 80’s, before switching to Democrat, and back to Republican again, so you can apply the same skepticism to how much of a Conservative he is now, to how much of a Liberal he really was back then.
I think it’s fair to ask just how committed was he to the beliefs of the Democrat party during 2001-2009. My own take is that issues like abortion, gay marriage, and social issues like that were not that important to him one way or the other, back then. He has always been more focused on economic issues and military issues. My sense is that there were other factors involved in his registering Democrat during that period. And as such, his acceptance of the pro-choice position, as an example, was just a casual acceptance of the default position of the Democrats on that issue. Does anybody really believe that the feminist pro-abortion sensibility, or the radical homosexual agenda is what really animates Trump? Those are side issues for him, but at least he’s taken the right position on them, now that he’s thrown his hat into the ring.
Then why was he a Democrat back then? Who can say for sure. I have some speculations on why, but it seems clear to me that it wasn’t the social issues that drove him there.
As for the rest, I think his goals have always been the same - a strong country, both economically and military. The scheming social engineering of the Left was never his thing, even when he was a Democrat.
I think it’s on his core issues like the economy, military, etc., for which the strong case can be made, that he has genuinely evolved, in the same way that Reagan did. His goals for a strong economy and strong military have never waivered. His ideas on how to achieve those ends, have evolved in the right direction as he has turned his attention to them more over the past few years.