Posted on 03/14/2016 9:36:00 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
I like the idea of Ben Carson, man of integrity and plainspoken utterer of hard truths, being okay with Trump lying outlandishly to the public about what he thinks so long as he doesn’t really believe it.
“I needed to know that he could listen to other people, that he could change his opinions, and that some of the more outlandish things that he’s said, that he didn’t really believe those things,” Carson said.
When asked which statements Trump might back away from, Carson demurred.
“I’ll let him talk about that because I don’t think it’s fair for me to relay a private conversation,” he said.
When he said last week that “There are two different Donald Trumps,” he wasn’t kidding. The dark art of Trumpism lies in making the individual voter believe that he’s BSing everyone else, that “their” version of Trump is the true one and the “other” Trump is just working an angle to protect himself temporarily. If you’re a border hawk, Trump saying that he’s changing on H-1B visas isn’t disqualifying, it’s just a self-serving lie designed to make him seem more moderate on his way to the general election. If you’re more open to legalizing illegals, Trump’s mass deportation demand is just a self-serving lie he’s telling the right to protect his lead in the primaries. If you’re an alt-righter, Trump saying that he loves Israel is just his way of pandering to mainstream conservatives and centrist Democrats. If you’re pro-Israel, Trump dodging Jake Tapper’s questions on David Duke was, unfortunately, just something he had to do to keep his turnout up this month. He’s been doing this for months. That’s why most Trump controversies come with some sort of walkback: We’ll have mass deportation but we’ll also let the good ones back in, we’ll bar Muslims from entering the U.S. but it’ll be temporary and maybe short-lived. Believe whatever you want. Carson’s no exception.
The upshot of this, as Michael Brendan Dougherty notes, is that Trump has been able to retreat lately from all sorts of nationalist positions that his fans love with no dip in support. He’s lying to everyone else, see. Not to them.
But over the past few months, there has been a lot of evidence that Trump’s populist-nationalism is disintegrating. In September he released a tax-reform plan that is much beloved by the most anti-nationalist conservative thinkers around. In fact it is the very thing that Beltway creatures like Stephen Moore of the Club for Growth cite when they try to explain their sudden and perplexing support for Donald Trump.
Trump has also sounded completely out of his depth on immigration, much to the chagrin of his restrictionist fans. In a debate in Detroit, where Trump would supposedly have some of his most nationalist-minded fans, Trump said, “I’m changing. I’m changing. We need highly skilled people in this country, and if we can’t do it, we’ll get them in.” He described his position on immigration as “softening” and then long-windedly explained why Americans would not take seasonal jobs on some of Trump’s American properties. One of the reasons he offered was the weather. That’s right, the pro-American-worker Trump says that America is just too hot for American workers. Trump also pushed “touchback” amnesty, where illegal immigrants are granted legal status if they go home and obtain a guest-worker pass from an employer. Suddenly the “big beautiful door” in the Mexican border wall sounds a lot bigger. As Trump has begun to emphasize about immigration, “everything is negotiable.”
Trump’s non-interventionism also seems to be on the table. In the Detroit debate he talked about creating “safe zones” in Syria to stem the refugee flow. And in the Miami debate he said he would commit ground troops to Syria and Iraq: “We really have no choice, we have to knock out ISIS… I would listen to the generals, but I’m hearing numbers of 20,000-30,000.”
Is Trump against amnesty or secretly for it? Is he anti-interventionist or secretly in favor? Is he serious about a trade war with China or does he secretly think that’d be a bad idea? (And it would be.) With a garden-variety pol like Romney, this slipperiness would damage him badly, smoking-gun proof that he has no principles. Trump gets away with it for two reasons. One: Because he sounds like the opposite of a smooth-talking politician, unconcerned with policy and eager to brawl rhetorically with the competition, no amount of weaseliness on his positions can shake the perception that he’s “authentic.” The guy called out rapists from Mexico who’ve crossed the border illegally in his announcement speech last June; anyone willing to say that has gained an essentially irrebuttable presumption of honesty from his fans. And two: The whole point of electing Trump is that he’s going to be some sort of populist avenging angel against the entrenched establishment in D.C. In reality he’d be anything but that as president — read Dougherty’s piece — but that’s the image he’s built for himself.
He’s going to war with the people’s enemies, both foreign and domestic. Once your candidacy is successfully framed that way, your supporters will indulge you nearly anything. War is, after all, a dirty business. If you need to lie to the media and the establishmentarians in order to gain power then that’s what you’ve gotta do. The moment of truth for Trump will be what happens if, somehow, he pulls this off and wins in November. Come next January, when he needs to start signing bills, one side or the other will find out conclusively that it’s been lied to. Which side will it be?
LOL
As I studied hemingway’s books, you could see his story line reveal his own personal battles (I believe he had PTSD). When it comes to DT reading them all and looking for patterns would reveal his world view which may in fact be very flexible. Back in the 80’s he argued before a congressional hearing about how Reagan’s economic plan was a total disaster and he funded Chris Dodd thereby bringing about, what? THE HOUSING BUBBLE.
Notice that in the above article that DT is honored for his outspoken non-politically correct talent for DESCRIBING a problem but his inability to even basically portray a solution with any consistency is ignored.
His talents as a construction/landscaper CEO fits the image of what the wounded in the US want but they ignore the fact that what he built was all geared toward entertainment. Not one thing manufactured, invented, or even uniquely creative. He built his fortune off the backs of the people who are supporting him and who can no longer take vacations and stay in hotels, play golf, or go to a casino. Maybe they should follow his lead and apply for a job with housing, lifetime benefits, and lifetime secret service protection.
Rush is going ballistic right now and he is going bug shit crazy because before, we ave never seen this shit, But we KNOW what to do
I am Backing the guy who fights for conservatism on his own, I am backing the guy that fights alone
Huh?
Cruz is part of the whacked-out Dominionist faith who thinks all Christians should be nutjobs like him and his old man, who tells people his lying son was sent by God to earth to save mankind, and he’s preordained to be president. The truth of the matter is his lying son is a failed US Senator who can’t get along with anyone and despised in Congress.
Trump supporters WILL stomach pretty much and “evolution” because:
They don’t know what he is saying most of the time. (crazy run on ramblings... Ugh)
They think he’s different
The talks tough - they feel like he has their back.
They buy into what he said yesterday and don’t think he means what he said today, or five years ago.
They want their own Obama
They think being a bully will get results because for too long we’ve wishy washy candidates that loser.
Trump knows how to throw a party. He gets them energized.
They willing and shut out any opinion that is counter to what they imagine trump will do.
Wouldn't you love to know which ones?
Okay.... Tell Me Donnys faith, I would rather die alone than follow a backstabber
I think Cruz overlooked a gimme on the family history thing. When Trump raised the issue on stage, Cruz should have grinned and said, "Donald, just for the record, my family has been in this country longer than yours. Both of us have one immigrant parent. On the other side, you are the grandson of two people who came over from Germany. On my mother's side, both of my grandparents were born in the USA. Three of my great grandparents are from Ireland and Italy, and one goes back in this country further than that ...."
He could have said something along those lines, joked about wanting to see Donald's boyhood pictures in lederhosen and kilts, and then addressed the foreign birth issue.
What a shock this is? I just can’t believe Donald Trump the Syster would lie to anyone. And that anyone would buy it out of hand. I also can’t believe that someone so “True blue honest and just darn GOOD like Carson would endorse someone who says hes lying. Really? Say it ain’t so?
jeffersondem wrote:
“The dark art of Trumpism lies in making the individual voter believe that he’s BSing everyone else, that “their” version of Trump is the true one and the “other” Trump is just working an angle to protect himself temporarily.”
Actually that style and tactic of personality confrontational no issues campaining Trump is using was deceloped and used to great success by JF Goebbels. Folks came away from those rallys exclaiming; Great speech ! When asked the content was the reply was usually; Don’t remember.
This is what I sent to friends on Saturday:
Friends:
I do not believe that one should try to remain neutral, as between Cruz & Trump, after Cruz's pandering to a Leftwing media narrative, which seeks to blame Donald Trump for the organized thuggery that shut down his rally in Chicago, last evening. The whole point of the Chicago mob's effort was to retaliate & reverse the effect of Trump's achievement in breaking the hold of "politically correct" thinking on American public discourse. If the mob can shut down a public assembly for a purpose not "politically correct," we will never restore the historic heritage of the American peoples.
As I have posted in a rightwing forum, today:
What the Left has sought with the "politically correct" intimidation of dissent, is simply the latest form of the mob rule intimidation that almost destroyed France with the Jacobin Revolution; which sought to impose uniformity of thought by--among other atrocities--cutting off the heads even of teen aged girls, whose only sin was that they were born into landed families!
It is the latest form of the despicable November, 1917, Bolshevik Revolution, where Lenin and his equally despicable side kick, Leon Trotsky, used Trotsky's Red Army to suppress all dissent in Russia--even forcing the young daughters of Russian landowners into brothels, where they died from physical abuse within a matter of months.
It is the latest form of the German Brown Shirt stifling of dissent in the streets of German cities, paving Hitler's path to power, directed by his then side kick, Ernst Roehm. This led in a very few years to Kristol Night & death camps. (Of course, Roehm might have been hailed as a hero, as an out of the closet practitioner of homosexuality, by President Obama, in a "politically correct" America.)
I do not know how the introduction of Communist tyranny into China & Cambodia may have paralleled the tactics of Trump haters yesterday, but I am sure that there are many parallels. Forced uniformity of thought invariably involves some direct elements of mob rule.
We Stand With Donald!
William Flax
So you have a problem with faith and you back the guy runninhg the casino numbers?
Trump has German ancestry but he is an American, just like all of the other candidates...
I have a funny feeling that hitler (AH) was not flexible. He did know some really great people though. Great at what they did and proved it to him over and over and over and over. AH did not also have communists with whom he had to make “deals” and like I said, AH would not make deals.
DT just wants to make money even if he made all his money in the entertainment field. You see, if all his supporters are working then they can go to his golf courses, casinos, and hotels, and spend all their hard earned money in his venues. He wants to make them happy by having them all work for him. That’s ok. That’s what they want.
DT doesn’t want to take over any nation. He’ll take their money, but he doesn’t want their land unless it would be a great location for a country club and even if it is preserved. Watch out Old Faithful, you might become hole #13.
This donnybrook aint over
"He’s certainly not backing that confirmed cheater Lyin’ Ted."
Since Carson got Trump to say he was lying about things he says and since Trump said Ted was a liar, it is now understood that Ted is a liar, WAS A LIE.
In the freedom of speech thing...
Which candidate wants to open up slander and libel laws to sue the media?
Not that I like what the media does but that is a direct threat to the freedom of the press - and therefore speech.
It won’t be to my side!
Go Trump Go!
Not a reliable source"
Except when they say nice things about Trump. Then the Trumpsters use them.
A fool rarely changes his mind but a wise man often does.
I guess even PeanutHead Carter knows Cruz is a fool.
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