Posted on 11/24/2015 1:49:26 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Donald Trump says a lot of things a lot of people consider outrageous. What is he doing?
The first thing to remember is that many of Trump's supporters, and a large part of the American public in general, support the very statements others consider outrageous. Deport 11 million illegal immigrants? Many Americans, including almost everyone in the media, think that's crazy. But many other Americans agree with Trump.
The recent brouhaha over whether Trump did or did not suggest a federal government database of all Muslims in the United States is another example. Trump didn't actually suggest it - the idea came from a reporter with Yahoo News - but he never clearly shot it down, either. Like deportations, a poll on the Muslim database question would likely show a significant number of Americans agreeing with the idea.
So maybe Trump just has a lot of outrageous ideas. Or perhaps something else, something more strategic, is going on.
Trump has always portrayed himself as a master negotiator. "I'm a deal maker, I'll make great deals for this country," he has said many times. Trump believes making deals sometimes involves making demands some would consider outrageous.
Trump gave the public an important clue to his method last month, when he appeared at the non-partisan No Labels convention in Manchester, N.H.
Trump knew that the No Labels group craves a candidate who will reject the partisan extremes of left and right and base a governing style on compromise. Trump presented himself as just that man, emphasizing how, as a real estate developer, he had worked with Democrats in New York City to get things done.
Still, the audience wanted to hear more about Trump's willingness to compromise. "Compromise has become the dirty word," a questioner said to Trump. If a President Trump were involved in a conflict on, say, taxes, what kinds of things would he offer, "as a gesture of compromise"?
"Let me just tell you, the word compromise is not a bad word to me," Trump replied. "I like the word compromise. We need compromise, there is nothing wrong with compromise, but it's always good to compromise and win. Meaning, let's compromise and win."
Then Trump got to the heart of the matter. "The word compromise is absolutely fine. But if you are going to compromise, ask for about three times more than you want. You understand? So when you compromise, you get what you want."
Perhaps deporting all illegal immigrants is the political version of asking for about three times more than you want.
Trump has repeated his deportation vow many times. But few have noted that when Trump rolled out his written immigration plan, posted on his campaign website, there was nothing about mass deportation. In addition to Trump's famous "beautiful wall," the plan had a lot of mainstream conservative proposals about securing the border and tightening interior enforcement.
The effect of Trump's deportation proposal was to pull the Republican immigration debate toward immigration and further right - that is, where Trump wanted it to go. When Trump made an actual written proposal, even an abbreviated campaign-style proposal, it was more measured.
Asking for about three times more than he wants helps Trump keep up his image with supporters. Perhaps the biggest part of Trump's appeal to those supporters is that they see him as strong, and other candidates as weak. Trump has to keep sounding strong to keep their support - even if the things he says scandalize others.
It's all part of the campaign. In a new interview with GQ, Trump essentially concedes a tendency to go over the top. That would change, he said, if he became president. "I would imagine I would be quite a bit different," Trump explained. "I would feel differently about things as a president. Right now, I'm fighting a lot of people. As a president I would be more measured."
Trump's natural penchant for show business, combined with that instinct to overstate his demands, plus the requirements of his supporters, have created a candidacy that can be very difficult for outsiders to read. For now, it works. But it doesn't reveal much about what Trump might do if elected.
?????????????????????
~~Will the real Donald Trump please stand up~~
The chattering class strain their brains, but can’t figure Trump’s appeal. Normal Americans get it, even if Trump’s not their candidate.
You know? I have the same question about Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, John Kasich, Ben Carson and nearly all of the others.
Whoops, better get that new pot of coffee going.
General George Patton had a penchant for making outrageous statements too but I don’t think you would have any objections with how he carried out his duties. He backed up his assertions and then some. The thing about Trump is that he said he is going looking for some new General Patton’s. As a Vet, I know they are out there and ready to serve, if given the chance and to keep their mouths shut. Just do what they were trained to do, kill people and break things.
If Byron York, David Frum and David Brooks have a problem with his brashness, then maybe they need a testicular implant to get with the rest of the program.
They are determined to stop Trump at all costs and won’t stop till they’ve thrown the kitchen sink, the plumbing and the electrical boxes at him.......
Your constant negativity about Trump is getting very old. Why don’t you tell us who you support, and why?
The chattering class strain their brains, but can’t figure Trumpâs appeal. Normal Americans get it, even if Trump’s not their candidate.
He does not fit in any of their pre-assigned categories, so they have autistic fits trying to understand him.
Like Raymond in Rainman.
Underwear HAS to come from K-Mart. That is where underwear comes from!
They are determined to stop Trump at all costs and won’t stop till they’ve thrown the kitchen sink, the plumbing and the electrical boxes at him.......
In the headline lies the whole problem with the article, it is just a theory. Pointy headed elites have all kinds of unproved theories and the brain dead LIV’s think because the word theory is associated with science, then there must be something to it. The fact is that most theories remain as just that.
As much as the world considers E=MC² to be a fact, it is still just a theory. So as long as these dufuses who make their living on pontificating what is in their beltway dictated and formulated points of view, they are proof of the fact of computing in general;
Garbage in, garbage out.
He’s standing, CW........He is surely standing!
He takes the ‘incoming’ from people like the York-ies....and you ....24/7
This man has more energy than anyone I’ve ever seen who is runnung for the highest office in the land
Reagan was great!....He was wonderful, and he kept up......but Trump has energy that doesn’t stop!
It must be his clean living.......no booze, no smokes, no drugs.....and he only needs about 5 hours sleep at night,
The REAL DONALD TRUMP is purely driven to right the wrongs and Make America Great Again
GO TRUMP!
Byron York and the rest of his ilk are saying to themselves, “Damn it. Why are these nimrods supporting him and not listening to us?” Sorry Byron, but cowering to the Democrats and allowing then to trample all over the country unimpeded has worked real for all of us, hasn’t it? Go back to your glass building, write your op ed pieces and position papers, and we nimrods and yokels will take this country back from the left with or without you and the GOPe’s help.
Hit and run trolling again.
Yup, sorta like a mosquito. They hunt you down and you get bit.
You might find this interesting:
Donad Trump - The Jacksonian Candidate
".......In large part, Donald Trump is a Jacksonian, the tradition originally associated with the Scotch-Irish heritage in America and best represented historically by the tough old bird himself, Andrew Jackson. Old Hickory might be mystified that a celebrity New York billionaire is holding up his banner (but, then again, Jackson himself was a rich planter). Trump is nonetheless a powerful voice for Jacksonian attitudes.
Historian Walter Russell Mead once wrote a memorable essay on the Jacksonianism that, so many years later, serves as a very rough guide to the anti-PC and fiercely nationalistic populism of the 2016 Trump campaign......
Trump never sweats the details. Jacksonians, according to Mead, believe "that while problems are complicated, solutions are simple." In fact, the side in a public debate that "is endlessly telling you that the popular view isn't sufficiently 'sophisticated' or 'nuanced - that is the side that doesn't want you to know what it is doing, and it is not to be trusted."
Trump doesn't believe in limited government. "Jacksonians believe that the government should do everything in its power to promote the well-being - political, moral, economic - of the folk community," Mead writes. "Any means are permissible in the service of this end, as long as they do not violate the moral feelings or infringe on the freedoms that Jacksonians believe are essential in their daily lives."
Trump isn't ideologically consistent. The Jacksonian philosophy, Mead notes, "is an instinct rather than an ideology - a culturally shaped set of beliefs and emotions rather than a set of ideas."
Finally, national honor is a paramount value for Jacksonians, a concern that can be heard in Trump's signature promise to make America great again. He will out-bully and out-fox our adversaries and, as for ISIS, he will bomb and water-board it into submission.
It is tempting to see Donald Trump as something wholly new, the reality star who represents the merger of entertainment and popular culture. He is also something centuries old, the populist railing against a corrupt and ineffectual elite that will, through his chastisement, get the comeuppance it deserves."
Your assertions are just merely assumptions based on his media history as a painted public personality by the media for its purposes. If you listen to him, and I really mean listen to him, he is just as pissed off at the establishment of both parties to accomplish anything meaningful for anybody but themselves that he decided he had the capabilities to do it himself.
I know it may be almost impossible for you to stomach, but listen to his live speeches and town halls and reject the chattering classes rantings. The chattering class is just an extension of the people whom we elected to get something done besides be a rubber stamp for the DC elites.
Listening to David Frum on Laura Ingraham’s show yesterday was a perfect example of just how tone deaf people like his chattering class really are. I was driving along screaming like a madman but at the same time gleeful that she gave him the chance to be seen with two sunny sides on his face when all the while he just thought it was his after shave.
Will you vote for Donald Trump when he is the GOP nominee for President in November 2016 ?
Yes or no ?
My theory is she is for the Establishment hope Rubio at this point, but she has move from the Walker campaign (from the Perry campaign last time around) to now working on the GOPe anti-Trump campaign.
I guess a gal’s gotta do what she’s gotta do.
(Oh, and denying it would go with the job, of course.)
The elites assume all people around the world are exactly equal in ability...or at least they publicly profess to that belief. The non-pundit class i.e. average Americans know better. They know many people from some parts of the world never assimilate and try to recreate their own failed culture in their new homes.
Ask the Swedes how allowing a million Muslims into their country is working out. Young Somalis in Minnesota and other places frequently turn to crime or become jihadis.
While many people from south of the border have turned into excellent Americans, it only takes one photo of a bunch of young Hispanic-American youths giving the finger to a cameraman while marching in a La Raza demonstration or cheering for Mexico against the U.S. in a soccer match to make many non-Hispanic Americans believe those sorts will never be assimilated.
What York---and you---knows is that Trump would absolutely build the wall, lower taxes, enforce immigration law (including deportations), and so on. What he does not want yo believe is that LARGE majorities of Americans are very concerned with the overrunning of our country by illegals and Muslims, and that both of these have serious national security concerns that Yirk, Walker, Rubio, and the GOPe want to pretend don't exist.
Where oh where has Scott Walker gone?
Where oh where can he be?
He disappeared from the stage one day...
And I think he took my brain away......
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.