Imagine If Donald Trump Ran As A Democrat - It's Not Too Hard To Do

The Daily Caller ^ | December 14, 2015 | Jamie Weinstein

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Imagine for a moment if Donald Trump made the decision to run for president as a Democrat instead of as a Republican.

As Trump-mania continues to dominate the Republican presidential primary, it's not hard to envision an alternate reality - one where the real estate billionaire is taking the country by storm as a Democrat.

In many ways, it would have been easier for Trump to enter the Democratic primary than the Republican primary. Trump was registered as a Democrat from 2001 to 2009 and donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid over the years. (In fairness, he has donated a lot of money to Republican candidates as well.)

As a native of liberal New York City, it's not surprising that Trump has a much longer record of being pro-choice than he does of being pro-life.

"I support a woman's right to choose," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press" in 2000.

Trump was never a staunch opponent of gay marriage either until recently. In fact, Rick Santorum says that Trump chided him in 2011 for being "too hard-core" on gay marriage and abortion.

"I don't know anyone that shares that opinion with you," Santorum said Trump told him.

So it's not too hard to envision Trump running as a socially liberal Democrat. Indeed, it would seemingly be a far easier act for the thrice-married New Yorker to pull off than convincing evangelicals that he is staunchly pro-life and against gay marriage.

On foreign policy, Trump isn't all that different from Barack Obama. To the extent his foreign policy worldview is comprehensible, he comes across as the least hawkish candidate in the GOP field, with the possible exception of Rand Paul, even though rhetoric sometimes masks this. While he says he wants to increase military spending and "bomb the shit" out of ISIS, he regularly makes the case for reducing America's leadership role in world affairs and focusing on nation building at home.

"I'll tell you what, there is going to be nation building. You know what the nation's going to be? The United States, that's what the nation's going to be," Trump told me in September, speaking of his foreign policy outlook.

As Trump also repeatedly highlights, he opposed the Iraq war (though the first evidence of this comes from 2004, over a year after the war began). Such a position is far more endearing to the Democratic base than Hillary Clinton's support for the military action that removed Saddam from power.

Trump wouldn't be out of place on economic issues in a Democratic primary either. At this anti-Wall Street moment, Trump could paint himself as the insider who is ready to turn enemy of his class for the good of the country.

What's more, Trump has a record of favoring proposals that would be far more vexing to the one percent than anything Bernie Sanders has proposed. In 1999, Trump proposed a one-time 14.25 percent tax on wealthy Americans and trusts over $10 million. Even now he doesn't back away from that proposal philosophically, even though he says he doesn't intend to pursue it in the White House.

"At that time we could have paid off the entire national debt and we could have started the game all even," Trump told Sean Hannity in August, noting that the proposal was actually "very conservative."

Trump is also a supporter of universal health care, if not Obamacare.

"I am going to take care of everybody," Trump said on "60 Minutes" in September. "I don't care if it costs me votes or not. Everybody's going to be taken care of much better than they're taken care of now."

Trump even praised the single payer health care programs of Canada and Scotland during the first Republican presidential debate in August.

"As far as single payer, it works in Canada, it works incredibly well in Scotland, it could have worked in a different age, which is the age you are talking about here," Trump said when asked by the moderators about his past support for single payer health care.

Of course Trump would have had to made the strategic decision to position himself to run in 2016 as a Democrat way back in 2010, before he went on his birther kick. You probably can't win a Democratic primary as one of the leading birthers in the country.

His rhetoric on immigration also wouldn't fly in a Democratic primary. But if he made the decision to position himself as a Democrat contender back in 2010, he would never have called for the deportation of all the illegal immigrants in the country. In fact, after Mitt Romney lost in 2012, Trump criticized the Republican contender's rhetoric on immigration as "mean-spirited," which suggests Trump's instincts on illegal immigration may be less harsh than what we are seeing today

"The Democrats didn't have a policy for dealing with illegal immigrants, but what they did have going for them is they weren't mean-spirited about it," Trump told Newsmax. "They didn't know what the policy was, but what they were is they were kind."

But if Trump made the decision to run as a Democrat in 2010, he may be even better positioned to win the Democratic presidential nomination today than he is to win the Republican nomination. The Democratic field is far smaller and with Joe Biden's decision to not enter the race, there is no candidate opposing Hillary Clinton who people can actually imagine winning the nomination, even if Sanders could potentially threaten her in a few states.

Trump may have been that guy. He could have successfully branded Clinton as untrustworthy and even criminal over her email scandal and shady Clinton Foundation dealings, just like he negatively branded so many of his GOP foes. And it very well may have worked, just like it seems to have worked with "low-energy" Jeb Bush.

So it doesn't take too much of an imagination to envision a world where Donald Trump is on the verge of winning the Democratic nomination. In fact, it may even be far easier to get your head around than our current reality.

[Lazamataz]

Thank you, kind sir.

[Elsie]

Imagine If Donald Trump Ran As A Democrat

 

HMMMmmmnnn...

 

 

 

Howard Brush Dean III (born November 17, 1948) is an American politician who served as the 79th Governor of Vermont from 1991 to 2003 and Chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) from 2005 to 2009.^[1] Dean was a candidate for the Democratic nomination in the U.S. Presidential Election, 2004. His implementation of the fifty-state strategy as head of the DNC, as well as his campaigning methods during the 2004 presidential campaign, are considered significant factors behind Democratic victories in the 2006 congressional elections and the 2008 presidential election.

 

Dean at a DNC event, September 2006

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Dean

[Elsie]

But what about Carly?

Hittable?

[Elsie]

The world has changed drastically in the past few yrs and Trump has been “mugged” and so has evolved.

So has America!

[Iscool]

But ALL of this is "old news" to many of his supporters who don't care and fervently cheer him on.

If Trump switched parties and Bush or some of the others was the Republican primary winner, I'd still vote for Trump...

The GOP has screwed the Republicans...And you are being one of them...You are GOPe and I'll do what I can to destroy and rebuild your globalist, New World Order Party...

[huldah1776]

Cruz is my first choice, but taking advantage of an opportunity is not a fault. I think Trump is seeing what socialism and anti-constitutionalism has done to our nation as have many other left leaning citizens. They are prodigal sons and are realizing what conservatives have known all along.

Find out who is advising him now. Trump is loyal to those who are loyal to him. Who are his top campaign managers?

[Elsie]

I don't see a mugging victim, I see a self-promoting opportunist.

In the corporate world; if you do not promote yourself; why should anyone else?

[dynoman]

Trump is fine on HC if you understand what's he's actually said since he announced. He has consistently complained that when he asks for bids on HC for his employees he gets one, then states there is no competition. He wants the HC insurance companies to compete. He's said he wants tho who can afford HC to be able to buy it in a competitive marketplace, and said those who cannot afford it should be covered by some sort of single payer i.e. government. When you realize that those who have HC are paying for those who don't anyway the idea isn't incoherent like people make it out to be.

I'm not going to spoon feed the dinosaurs here on this thread, they should look up the facts about Trump's current positions themselves.

[Elsie]

Your anti-Trump insanity is ruining the site.

Captain Hyperbole disagrees.

This site is in very good shape because it ALLOWS varying opinions and veiwpoints to be heard.

Unless one gets REALLY obnoxious here; you get to speak your mind without undue censorship.

[dynoman]

Thanks for some obsjctive facts!

[C. Edmund Wright]

You’ve never changed, politically? I sure did. I was once a very liberal guy.

Nope, not for a minute. And btw, did you wait until you were 67 or so to change from a liberal? And when you did, were you the man to lead the conservative movement when you were 69? Analogy is not that easy sometime.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

".......Trump praises socialized medicine First, some terminology. Single-payer health care describes any country in which the government is effectively the sole insurance company: the "single payer" of health insurance claims. Socialized health care describes a country in which the government owns the entire health care system-not just the insurance companies, but also the hospitals, the nursing homes, and the doctors' offices.

Canada is single-payer because while Canada's insurance system is controlled by the government, there are private hospitals and doctors. Scotland's system, like the rest of Great Britain, is socialized, because the British National Health Service runs everything.

So, back to Donald Trump. His argument last night was that single-payer health care in Canada "works," and that fully socialized medicine in Scotland "works incredibly well." Let's start with Canada...." - More

[billyboy15]

Agreed.

[Iscool]

So you want him to take care of you?

No, we would rather lay down in the ally and die so the trash collectors can scoop us up and take us to the landfill...

With a little luck you can get your GOPe to eliminate Social Security altogether...They just stole another 150 billion of our money anyway...

[Elsie]

Cincinatus is an asset to this site in the eyes of those not scared of the truth.

[dynoman]

This thread was worth it because of your post alone. People should want to be fighting the right battle on the right battlefield. Fighting the wrong battle on the wrong battlefield will lose the war.

[jmaroneps37]

This is moronic. Trump DID run as a Democrat using the name Jim “Mellon Head” Webb.

If Trump was running as a Democrat Martin O’Mally would be killing him and he would be sitting at the kiddie table with Mellon Head Webb.

[Bryanw92]

>>we have nothing but his statements .... which have changed over the years. That’s not all that reassuring.

Did you read “The America We Deserve”which was written 15 years ago? It is very consistent with what he says now.

[MayflowerMadam]

‘’I see a self-promoting opportunist.’’

Exactly the kind of person I want as President. If Trump becomes President, American’s successes will reflect well on him and his legacy. That means that, as an opportunist, he’ll take every opportunity to make America successful (which will, in turn, make him look good). Maybe it’s not exactly noble, but I don’t care. I want America to kick ass in this world again.

It’s like one of the threads in “Atlas Shrugged”. The so-called “greedy” people — capitalists — want to succeed. By their alleged greed, they elevate others along the way by providing jobs, etc.

[dynoman]

Be sure and read post 85! Brilliant!