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.
If Trump didn't have a fortune, would you give him a second look?
And why do you think he puts your concerns above his own?
Read post 85 by Laz.
You are beyond tiresome. Why don’t you actually advocate for a candidate instead of posting your daily Trump diatribes.
I do and the same posters who support Trump come on to disrupt it.
Your calling Trump a “Big Government liberal” and focusing on his frequently shifting party allegiances really misses what’s actually going on here. Trump is not a liberal; he is a populist-nationalist. Populist-nationalists (in Trump’s brand and in European and historical varieties) put the interests of the people of their country first before that of foreigners or elites. That sometimes means they support things (certain government programs for example) that may seem liberal, but that help the struggling workers of their country. Populists have historically belonged to both the Democratic and Republican Parties, since neither party really represents their views. Yet, populism has always been an important but underrepresented force in US politics (meaning too that a populist can draw more voters across party lines than a traditional Democrat or Republican could do).
The reason populist Trump couldn’t run as a Democrat, though, is the nationalist part of his philosophy. Open-borders Democrats loathe nationalists, and it’s this America-first nationalism that is inspiring the lefties to melt-down while screaming “Fascist!” at Trump. A lot of Americans, however, feel that the globalist Dems & Repubs don’t look out for their interests at all; hence they flock to Trump, whose entire political philosophy revolves around giving the needs and safety of regular Americans precedence over those of other peoples, countries, and the elites and establishment.
I’ve read a lot about Trump, watched tons of interviews, including many old ones, etc., and I’m convinced he’s been a populist-nationalist since at least the 1980s, if not his whole life. He hasn’t switched his core political philosophy; he just doesn’t fit well into pre-defined party labels.
You need to study up on “firebrands” like Hugo Chavez (now his legacy), his nationalism, his socialism, his appeal to the masses and how that’s not going so well - same as in Cuba and Zimbabwe. But it went VERY well for the leadership and their relatives and their cronies, VERY VERY well indeed.
You trumpeteers bore me.
Now for a short public service announcement to all on FR:
We need to ensure we don't get another Obama-like America Hater as the next President.
The best way to ensure that is to actively support a candidate as the next President.
I prefer Cruz and my money goes to his campaign, hence the Cruz link. If you like someone else, donate to him/her (find your own link to do it) and if you use FR and don't donate, then please don't complain about the welfare leeches or those who have Obama Phones because, functionally, you are no different than any other FReeloader
PS - If you are one of those who cannot afford even a small donation to FR or a candidate, God Bless and happy FReeping!.....
GO CRUZ!! Keep it up Trump!!
Trump is most decidedly not a socialist. Chavez was foremost a socialist, who used some populist rhetoric to appeal to the masses. To compare these dictators to Trump is patently ridiculous and only goes to show you are detached from reality when it comes to Trump.
The way I see it, populism has always dominated in the South and often in rural areas elsewhere in the country. Over the course of the 1960s-1980s, these populists predominantly gravitated away from the Dems to the Repubs. It was only inevitable that eventually they would lead an internal revolution against the big international business, neo-con, globalist, elitist, open-borders Republican establishment because they outnumber the establishment. Buchanan tried in the 1990s, but the time wasn’t ripe yet. Trump has picked the right time when hatred of the establishment is at an all-time high, and he is now leading a revolution to shake up the antiquated and unrepresentative old party system—and it’s high time it happened.
You are courageous to continue to post threads critical of Trump even though you know countless jackals will call you names and harass you with garbage comments like “Scott Walker lost lolololololol”. I can tell you right now, I wouldn’t be able to handle it. I thank you.
If one knows how to use a computer, Malkin at national review has a great article written in 2011.
Thank you.
I didn’t battled through the Clinton and Obama years to carelessly walk away now.
: )
Except he wasn't. He warned about the problems of Islamic terrorism and open borders/illegal immigration in his 2000 book, The America We Deserve. That's a decade and a half ago (and pre-9/11), not just a few years ago. These two issues are fundamentally fueling his current campaign.
In addition, I'm pretty sure it was Ann Coulter (among others) who reminded people not too long ago of the full-page ad Trump took out in the New York Times in 1989 calling for New York State to reinstitute the death penalty. His current campaign is pro-police/law & order, which seems in keeping with his views since the Eighties. He has also been for decades now one of the few people who has a concealed-carry permit for New York City. Most lefties wouldn't pick up a gun to literally save their lives.
Of course, in interviews from the 1980s he used to really get worked up about how the US is being ripped off in its trade deals with other countries. I guess one could argue about where in the political spectrum that one falls, but a lot of people on the right feel the same way and it does show consistency.
Nothing new when your principles are for sale.
Do you donate to candidates?
Heck, ALL the Republican candidates could easily be thought of as Democrat with their Foreigners First approach and huge spending bills.
Your broad-brush dismissal of all Republicans is just plain lazy and very telling.
“Your broad-brush dismissal of all Republicans is just plain lazy and very telling.”
Really? I haven’t seen the party do much otherwise. I call ‘em like I see ‘em.
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.