Posted on 01/22/2016 2:41:08 PM PST by Isara
The rise of The Donald has been remarkable. He is, it seems, supported by conservative Republicans and independents. At least that is the what they claim to be. He is supported by people who impose strict litmus tests on politicians-ready to denounce them as RINOs or liberals at the drop of a hat. And yet, those litmus tests don’t appear to apply to Trump.
On the contrary, he can do no wrong. And everything he says must be good-because he is “speaking his mind” and “telling it like it is.” Trump supporters have excused his flip-flops (something they would have never done for Mitt Romney) on issues like abortion and guns. Trump supporters have ignored his current faults, including his continuing defense of single-payer healthcare. Trump supporters have also ignored his personal and business failings, including but not limited to: his fake brand of Christianity, his three marriages, his four bankruptcies, his four draft deferments, his use of eminent domain, and his unabashed buying-off of politicians (including the Clintons).
Trump supporters are rightly angry about the state of the country, but they have also bought into a cult of personality. Personality cults are always dangerous, especially when someone as charismatic (and wealthy) as Donald Trump is at the helm. If Trump decides to run independent ala fellow-protectionist Ross Perot, you can be sure millions of people will follow him and torpedo the Republican candidate.
Let’s give credit where it is due: Donald Trump was smart enough to make this happen. Despite never holding office, he knows how to be a politician. Jeffrey Tucker summed up Trump’s strategy best (please read his entire article):
As of this writing, Trump is leading in the polls in the Republican field. He is hated by the media, which is a plus for the hoi polloi in the GOP. He says things he should not, which is also a plus for his supporters. He is brilliant at making belligerent noises rather than having worked out policy plans. He knows that real people don't care about the details; they only want a strongman who shares their values. He makes fun of the intellectuals, of course, as all populists must do. Along with this penchant, Trump encourages a kind of nihilistic throwing out of rationality in favor of a trust in his own genius. And people respond, as we can see.
Rick Perry has tried to tell the truth about Trumpism. Now Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is taking up the baton. I hope they are successful, and they should be commended for standing up against The Donald and his lynchmob.
But people were sounding the warning bells back when Trump was last threatening a presidential bid in 2011. Among them was the now-deceased Andrew Breitbart. Here is what he had to say:
Of course, he's not a conservative. He was for Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), before he was against Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)...celebrity is everything in this country if these guys don't learn how to play the media the way Barack Obama played the media last election cycle and the way that Donald Trump is playing the election cycle-we're going to probably get a celebrity candidate.
Ironically, the Breitbart website has seemingly been the online driving force behind Trump’s candidacy. Andrew Breitbart, if he were still alive, would have never allowed that to happen.
Michelle Malkin has had a very public feud with Trump going back to 2011 as well…and it has continued. She wrote a devastating column about “Donald Trump’s eminent-domain empire.”
Trump has attempted to use the same tactics in Connecticut and has championed the reviled Kelo vs. City of New London Supreme Court ruling upholding expansive use of eminent domain. He told Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto that he agreed with the ruling "100 percent" and defended the chilling power of government to kick people out of their homes and businesses based on arbitrary determinations:
"The fact is, if you have a person living in an area that's not even necessarily a good area, and government, whether it's local or whatever, government wants to build a tremendous economic development, where a lot of people are going to be put to work and make (an) area that's not good into a good area, and move the person that's living there into a better place - now, I know it might not be their choice - but move the person to a better place and yet create thousands upon thousands of jobs and beautification and lots of other things, I think it happens to be good."
Like most statist promises of bountiful job creation, government-engineered redevelopment math rarelyaddsup. Trump's corporations have backed casino industry bailouts and wealth-redistributing "tax-increment financing" schemes - the very kind of taxpayer-subsidized interventions we've seen on a grand scale under the Obama administration.
Undoubtedly, hardcore Trump supporters will read this piece and add Breitbart and Malkin to their hate lists. But it is my hope that their conservative credibility will help open the eyes of others who may be considering Trump. It would be a grave mistake to put an ego-driven, pro-government New York billionaire anywhere near the White House (yes, that also applies to Michael Bloomberg).
Now is the time to #DumpTrump.
Have you ever lived around coyotes, by any chance? Heard them howling at night?
Trumpsters are all in for the clinton donor so this info is for the skeptics and undecided.
I’m not particularly keen on Trump’s style and his nastier tweets, but he has had far more venom spewed at him, first, than he could ever return. He didn’t touch Cruz until Cruz started going after him.
Now it is very unfortunate that the two best candidates are tearing themselves down—and the Establishment candidates are out of the line of fire.
And this could backfire in the general election if not the primaries.
I wanted a Trump/Cruz ticket and now that’s not a realistic possibility. That’s a shame because Trump’s VP choice will almost certainly be less conservative than Cruz.
Up is down and down is up. Conservatives are bad, and progressives are good.
What's happened to FR? A good man, a Constitutionalists, is being thrown under the bus for a guy who was a NYC far left wing liberal until 2015! I know. I'm from NY.
If we screw up this election and elect a used car salesman because he just "repeated" the "garbage" we wanted to hear, we're not going to get another chance. This country is over. There will be no turning back.
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This is a pro truth thread, not an anti Trump thread.
I’m sure that it is just a coinkydink that truth is always anti-Trump.
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How about we dump you and constant barrage of hit pieces? Sounds good to me.
You posted this at 2:42, I thought your shift didn’t start until 3:00?
Getting overtime now are ya?
Ive also noticed the big imbalance of anti trump posts on FR posts lately. It could be that desparation tends to thrash out more. For all the crap Trump supporters are taking I’ll still vote for Mr H1B Goldman Sachs if he gets the nomination. Unfortunately as Rush said, “In a nation of children.....”
Speaking of trust... Ted’s senior strategist just had a disastrous interview with F. Chuck Todd on MTP Daily. Todd asked her four times to clarify what Ted wants to do about the upward of eleven million illegals already in the country.
The words she used never varied. They were— that he has been “consistant” on the issue, and would “deal with the border first”. Over and over, “consistant” and “deal with the border first”.
Four times. A non-answer.
She never answered or even remotely alluded to the point of the question. She never addressed it at all. Ted will not answer it. Still.
Todd went, afterward, to his two-person panel, who reported that the TRUMP ad that shows Brett Baier interviewing Ted is the closest to an answer Ted has ever given, and the panelist said she had asked Ted, herself, on four different occasions and could not get an answer.
Now, I don’t know how far down this road anyone wants to go, but what Ted is “consistent” is a form of amnesty, exactly as he proposed on video during his amendment push to get to a “pathway to legalization”.
How is that not AMNESTY? Why will he avoid what he stands for? Why does he say he is against AMNESTY, when like Rubio in MA, he lays a template for exactly that?
Anybody?
If you want to dump Isara for posting articles that are unfavorable to Trump then you are no different than the leftists who want to ban all conservatives. If you think Isara should be banned for opposing Trump than you will have to ban me too.
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>> “He didn’t touch Cruz until Cruz started going after him.” <<
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If moving ahead in Iowa is “going after him” then yes you are right.
Trump freaked out and started throwing loony bombs at Cruz, much like he did when Carson moved ahead of him.
Trump is an insane child at best, but I think he is way beyond that in reality.
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I knew Andrew, was the guest at a dinner he hosted for me in Hollywood, went to his house on another occasion. Andrew firmly believed in letting in the “log Cabin Conservatives.” Not a knock, just a fact.
He would have no trouble at all with The Donald, and would see this election as a Yuge opportunity.
Malkin, on the other hand, has done at least one Glenn Beck event (I know cause she came on right after me!) We know where Beck is.
I have! In the 80s. I lived in an apartment complex near a high school & they were attracted to the food the kids threw out.
I called my neighbor & told her to make sure her doors were locked.
Why?
Personally I find Trumps personality to be abrasive, arrogant and haughty. But I am still voting for him.
Trump scores low likability scale.
Let’s dismantle the circular firing squad and make make a deal. If the anti-Trump, conservative establishment intellectuals turn out to be right about Trump, i.e, he moves sharply left after he gets the nomination, Trump’s supporters will admit they were naive and join the NRO crowd in opposing him. But if Trump gets elected and accomplishes much where the intellectuals have accomplished NOTHING due to political correctness, the intellectuals will admit that they were bad judges of character.
Your figures apply to the posters on Free Republic too.
All they have to do is google his name. All his progressive history will be right in front their faces! Loved Bloomburg, Hillary, oboma, Ried, Weiner...etc. He literally threw his money at the liberal democrats - yet Cruz is somehow not conservative enough for these Trump supporters? What????
Other than being a big celebrity, Trump has nothing to offer the country. He even wants to nationalize health care as well as American banks! That's something Sanders would support!. Why would people here even get close to supporting that? I just don't get it.
Breitbart is owned by one of Cruz’s biggest donors.
Redstate article: August 8, 2015
from Newsmax November 11, 2015:
“Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump is “an alpha male in a sea of betas” who cannot be dismissed from the presidential sweepstakes, conservative pundit Michelle Malkin told Newsmax TV on Wednesday.”
She said she liked his stand on immigration.
Who is being deceptive?
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