I hear you...
Posted on 12/14/2015 12:12:20 AM PST by 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.
You have the media.
THEY have sure told us of EVERY Republican that has a 'negative' about Trump!
About 98% of them...
YES! Be sure and read post 85 for a brilliant analysis of what the battle actually is.
Doesn't matter...This election is like none other...The direction and future of this Country rides on this election...
God will judge the nations in the very near future...He will judge us on how we treated his people, Israel...If Trump loses, we will turn our Country over to Izlam...Good luck with that...Look at France, Germany and especially Sweden...That's us just down the road...
For the last couple of days I have been asking about those who have worked with Trump to prove his character. While I despise Rove, he must have ammo. From the article you quoted and linked:
“This footage might be followed by compelling testimony from contractors, small-business people, and bondholders whom he stiffed. America has never elected a president with that kind of a dubious business record.”
Making a great deal is a gift, but keeping that deal, or keeping your word, is what we need. We’ve been shanked for the last 7 years and if there is a threat of it happening again, “fuhgedaboudit.”
I hear you...
You are the queen of misinformation...
I'm sure glad that NO others run the game by what the polls show!
Indeed!
We need 9-11 separate little parties to come together and control us!
“So I must conclude that they’re Big Government advocates too. “
You’re kidding, right?
If you look at the growth of government through Republican and Democrat Congresses, Presidencies - how could one conclude that Washington is anything but chock full of Big Government advocates?
I support Trumps stand on illegal immigration. Guess what? If he had the same positions on illegal immigration, but was a Democrat, I would vote for him.
Further, I think you’d find that many (far too many) “conservatives” on this forum receive government checks in one form or another.
Hold your nose and vote for Trump and make a positive move against illegal immigration.
No; eternity does...
Well then, get back to me when the boss declares FR as a "Trump Country" and formally endorses the Constitutionally ignorant autocrat.
What we do here echos in eternity...
A movie line with truth to it.
“Will the republicans following him be able to accept the truth?”
Can you accept the truth that republicans are “big government” just like the democrats?
Doesn’t that mean anything too you?
We Conservatives recoil from this statement; but he just rounded up a LOT of loose Dem/Lib voters!
Is that a problem??
Trump has never claimed to be a conservative.
The reason he’s leading is the GOP establishment is the opposite of conservative.
Its attacks on him as being liberal and big government simply have zero credibility.
Trump is a populist attacking an arrogant and out of touch uniparty establishment.
People hate it and ideology isn’t exactly what it stands for.
If you’re sick of the Ryans and McConnells running GOP Washington, Trump’s your man.
As he is for a lot of GOP primary voters looking to shake up Washington.
You have gotten so bad in posting hate Trump articles that we don’t even have read who posted them simply because as soon as we see the headline we automatically know that you posted another hate Trump article.
Liberalism is an incurable disease since it takes a brain to be conservative.
Anything with Rubio’s name on it is crap.
Well; sometimes things just happen...
I see there have been 120 replies to CW’s brain fart posting. I regret having to be #121 in order to say this. But I wonder if the best way to respond might be to just ignore her, him, it....whatever?
I, for one, will no longer cast my pearls before swine, so to speak. The old retort from back in the 20th Century comes to mind. “Just ignore it. Maybe it will go away.”
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