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QUESTION EVERYTHING should be our motto. Particularly when it comes to politics. The following column presents some ideas that challenge the conventional wisdom about Donald Trump. Please read it, whether you will be voting or not. A similar game could be played for the rest of us too.
Some key ideas explored on this article:
- (1) Don't you get the strange feeling that this has all been suspiciously easy?
- In light of this consistent pattern of vicious preemptive assault from the "left" and "right" against all anti-establishment GOP candidates in past elections, isn't it odd that Trump has been given a pass?
- As for the "conservative media," in the fall of 2011, Matt Drudge and Ann Coulter put all their weight behind the establishment's preferred candidate, Mitt Romney. And over the past several months, those same two bigwigs have invested all their savings in Trump stock.
- As for the old guard establishment itself, days before the Iowa caucus, when support for Cruz appeared to be surging, several GOP elder statesmen issued public statements (via mainstream media outlets such as The New York Times, CNN, and The Atlantic) saying they could work with Trump, but that Cruz was unlikeable.
- The true believers' claim that this showed the establishment cowering before the mighty Trump is rose-colored nonsense. On the eve of Iowa, it was obvious that their conditional endorsement of Trump was an effort to undermine Cruz.
- (2) Don't you find it odd that Trump, who habitually says the harshest, crudest, vilest things he can think of about anyone he perceives as an opponent or threat, never substantively criticizes the key players in the establishment at all?
- On the contrary, he boasts about his willingness to work with them, trumpets their willingness to work with him, and promises he'll make deals with them.
- Even a diehard Trump supporter, if he has retained any glimmer of objectivity, can see that the candidate most hated and feared by the entire Washington establishment, both Republican and Democrat, is Cruz.
- So everyone, from mainstream "liberals" Robert Reich and Bill Maher to mainstream Republicans Orrin Hatch, Bob Dole, and Trump himself, acknowledges that Cruz is the only candidate so anti-establishment as to cause real hatred and fear among the bipartisan progressive zeitgeist.
- (3) If you were Rove, McConnell, and the rest of the GOP elite, and you wanted to end the growing grassroots threat to your power and influence once and for all, how would you go about it?
- Here's what I would do. Accepting that the grassroots will no longer succumb to my superior funding, and that they have rejected the "safety" of the status quo, I would try to gerrymander the grassroots movement itself.
- The key to my strategy would be to find and exploit a viable stalking horse who might demolish the grassroots conservative movement from within more effectively than any external assault.
- But at the same time this man should be so charismatic and unscrupulous that he will happily pitch his campaign at the very people he has long ridiculed and set out to thwart, or at least at those among them who are so blinded by anger that they are prepared to jump on any bandwagon whose leader seems to share that anger, regardless of whether he consistently stands for anything they actually believed back when they were thinking rationally about saving their country.
- Through this agent of destruction, I would factionalize the Tea Party movement, turning long-time allies against one another.
Read the whole article by Daren Jonescu, and others including video by leftist Robert Reich favoring Donald Trump over Cruz.
Three Simple Questions
for Trump Supporters
The American Thinker
One summer's evening, a skinny, not-particularly athletic boy, perhaps eleven years old, scored the most glorious touchdown of his life. This was not a real game.
My friend and I, along with his older brother Phil, were just tossing a ball around in the park. But it was a memorable triumph because I scored my touchdown by outmaneuvering Phil with a head fake, and then outrunning him for half the length of the field. It was almost too easy!
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| TED CRUZ |
I was so giddy at my remarkable feat that I saw nothing peculiar in the fact that my pursuer, a very athletic boy several years my senior, somehow could not catch me. I went home that evening and boasted breathlessly about my achievement.
Slowly, reality dawned on me. Today, I remember that moment fondly as a teenager's generous gift to his kid brother's gawky friend. I also realize, upon reflection, that Phil was not the only one willing to grant me that artificial ego boost.
For as I proudly replayed my touchdown run for members of my family, they all kindly refrained from asking the illusion-bursting question: How had I managed to win a straight sprint against a strong, healthy athlete several years my senior?
I hadn't recalled that pleasant memory for a long time, but now, as I consider the rise of Donald Trump, and how he has sucked most of the air out of the constitutionalist movement, I can't stop thinking about it.
Trump's supporters remind me of my eleven-year-old self, so excited about their incredible triumph that they have blinded themselves to the obvious.
However, as the circumstances of their delusion are much more serious and less benign than my childhood touchdown, there is nothing kind about refraining from asking them an awkward question or three.
So today, addressing myself to any Trump supporters who are not already lost to the irrational anger he feeds on -- please don't scream about "righteous anger," as if I don't know the difference between justice and wrath -- I pose three simple questions:
(1) Don't you get the strange feeling that this has all been suspiciously easy?
Consider the fates of all previous GOP candidates to run against the party elite.
Remember Herman Cain the creepy philanderer?
Michele Bachmann the hysterical religious fanatic?
Rick Santorum the Catholic extremist who was going to outlaw birth control and lock all women in the kitchen?
And of course Ronald Reagan, the rare success story who taught the insiders a lesson they have never forgotten about the need for a unified strategy to nip all serious challenges in the bud?
But forget about the past; today we have Ted Cruz, the maniacal government-hating crusader and despicable liar whom everybody hates, who is owned by Goldman Sachs, and who may not even be an American!
In light of this consistent pattern of preemptive assault from the "left" and "right" against all anti-establishment GOP candidates, isn't it odd that Trump, who has been the obvious frontrunner in the primaries since last summer, and who presents as inviting a target for a media takedown effort as any candidate has ever presented, has been given a pass?
In fact, he's been given much better than a pass. Aside from the nonstop free advertising he is getting as celebrity of the year, the most overtly leftist news network, MSNBC, has actively helped to create an aura of inevitability around him, and to demean his opponents.
Meanwhile, has there been even one serious attempt on any twenty-four hour news network to dredge up and pursue any kind of scandal, ugly rumor, old girlfriends, shady business associates, anything at all that might undermine his campaign?
As for the "conservative media," in the fall of 2011, Matt Drudge and Ann Coulter put all their weight behind the establishment's preferred candidate, Mitt Romney. And over the past several months, those same two bigwigs have invested all their savings in Trump stock.
Four years ago, Rush Limbaugh pussy-footed (that means walking like a kitten, by the way) around Romney throughout the primaries; this time he seems to be walking even more gingerly around his golf buddy Trump, defending him as an anti-establishment champion, and even half-excusing his "Bush allowed 9/11 to happen" bluster in South Carolina as "strategy."
As for the old guard establishment itself, days before the Iowa caucus, when support for Cruz appeared to be surging, several GOP elder statesmen issued public statements (via mainstream media outlets such as The New York Times, CNN, and The Atlantic) saying they could work with Trump, but that Cruz was unlikeable.
The true believers' claim that this showed the establishment cowering before the mighty Trump is rose-colored nonsense. On the eve of Iowa, it was obvious that their conditional endorsement of Trump was an effort to undermine Cruz.
One Republican strategist stated this plainly at the time:
Cruz has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way in D.C., whereas Trump hasn't, and Trump up until this year was pretty much a player…. Ultimately, the Washington establishment deep down -- although they find Trump tacky or distasteful -- they think that they ultimately can work with him. Deep down, a lot of people think [read "know"] it is an act. (Emphasis added.)
This leads me to my second question:
(2) Don't you find it odd that Trump, who habitually says the harshest, crudest, vilest things he can think of about anyone he perceives as an opponent or threat, never substantively criticizes the key players in the establishment at all?
On the contrary, he boasts about his willingness to work with them, trumpets their willingness to work with him, and promises he'll make deals with them.
Even a diehard Trump supporter, if he has retained any glimmer of objectivity, can see that the candidate most hated and feared by the entire Washington establishment, both Republican and Democrat, is Cruz.
In fact, Trump himself has highlighted this fact as an argument against Cruz. Remember that Trump's original branding of Cruz as a "mean" and "nasty" guy whom "nobody likes" was explicitly focused on Cruz's criticism of Mitch McConnell on the Senate floor and his alleged inability to get along in Washington.
(By the way, that's the same McConnell Trump funded heavily against a Tea Party challenger, and about whom he tweeted this in 2014: "Someone unknown tweeted incorrectly that I'm for Sen. Mitch @McConnellPress for speaker. I'm supporting him for Senate Majority Leader.")
So everyone, from mainstream "liberals" Robert Reich and Bill Maher to mainstream Republicans Orrin Hatch, Bob Dole, and Trump himself, acknowledges that Cruz is the only candidate so anti-establishment as to cause real hatred and fear among the bipartisan progressive zeitgeist.
And yet you've chosen to vent your anti-establishment anger against Cruz?
And you're channeling that anger into supporting the only candidate in the race who actually boasts of having been a member of the establishment?
(If Trump doesn't fit the definition of a crony capitalist, then how do you define what you have been railing against all these years?)
You are proudly supporting the only candidate who touts his "great relationships" with the establishment's front men (including their socialist fronts, e.g., Pelosi, Schumer)?
The only one who, over the past five years, has heavily bankrolled the operations of Karl Rove, John Boehner, and Mitch McConnell?
The only one about whom leftist entertainer/culture critic Bill Maher recently said this:
Ted Cruz is scarier than Donald Trump…. Because I think Donald Trump, despite some of the crazy things he says, he also says some things that a liberal can love.
Which leads me to my third, and toughest, question:
(3) If you were Rove, McConnell, and the rest of the GOP elite, and you wanted to end the growing grassroots threat to your power and influence once and for all, how would you go about it?
Here's what I would do. Accepting that the grassroots will no longer succumb to my superior funding, and that they have rejected the "safety" of the status quo, I would try to gerrymander the grassroots movement itself.
The key to my strategy would be to find and exploit a viable stalking horse who might demolish the grassroots conservative movement from within more effectively than any external assault.
This stalking horse would ideally be someone with demagogue tendencies and a built-in fan base, someone whose style is not to outthink or out-hustle his opponents, but to do personal damage, to destroy challengers -- for destruction, not victory, is my primary goal in this case.
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| CHRIS CHRISTIE NOW ENDORSES TRUMP And you thought Trump was anti-Establishment? |
Preferably, he would be someone without serious principles or well-defined views – someone who has as little use for the Constitution and limited government as I do -- so that I could make deals with him, and staff his inner circle with my cronies, if by chance he actually won.
(Richard Hohlt, Republican lobbyist: "Do they [GOP insiders] all love Trump? No. But there’s a feeling that he is not going to layer over the party or install his own person. Whereas Cruz will have his own people there." [Emphasis added.])
As for political philosophy, I need him to be consistent and trustworthy on only one point: he must have a clear history of never having supported the Tea Party, and hopefully of directly opposing it in word and deed. A long-time donor to American Crossroads, the Congressional Leadership Fund, and the Crossroads off-shoot Kentuckians for Strong Leadership would be perfect -- but that's too much to ask, isn't it?
But at the same time this man should be so charismatic and unscrupulous that he will happily pitch his campaign at the very people he has long ridiculed and set out to thwart, or at least at those among them who are so blinded by anger that they are prepared to jump on any bandwagon whose leader seems to share that anger, regardless of whether he consistently stands for anything they actually believed back when they were thinking rationally about saving their country.
Through this agent of destruction, I would factionalize the Tea Party movement, turning long-time allies against one another.
I would encourage the fight to become as ugly, the rhetoric as unforgiveable, as possible, setting those factions on the path to mutual assured destruction.
Most importantly, I would encourage, support, and even, when it seemed judicious, echo this demagogue's most outrageous attacks against any genuine anti-establishment threats, in order to reinforce their believability.
If he said "Everyone hates Cruz," I would say "Well, you know, people don’t really like Cruz." If he said "Cruz is the biggest liar in the world," I would say, "Well, Cruz isn't telling the whole truth about X or Y."
And if I had a more congenial mainstream candidate in the field, I would support that man publicly to keep up appearances -- but I would avidly discourage him from running hard against my stalking horse, urging him instead to join in the propaganda campaign against the real anti-establishment threat, at least until that threat had been fully vanquished.
I would do all of this because, if my stalking horse can achieve my primary mission of tearing apart the conservative movement, then it really won't matter who wins either the nomination or the general election. If constitutionalism is permanently diluted by the resulting schism among the "base," then I, the establishment, will reap the ultimate benefits.
The ideal outcome, however, the one I would be praying for if I were the establishment, would be that the stalking horse wins the nomination after decimating the constitutionalist movement.
Then he takes his kook fringe-friendly candidacy to the general election.
He uses crude personal attacks and encourages thuggish mob intimidation against journalists, hecklers, or ordinary private citizens who question him.
Many of his supporters are exposed as white nationalists, 9/11 truthers, rage-filled men and idol-worshipping women, thus "confirming" everything the political and media mainstream has said about the Tea Party for years.
He is ambushed with a dozen nasty scandals about his business practices, his cronyism, his infidelities; and he is mocked for his incoherence, childish vocabulary, and sub-Palin ignorance on issues.
He loses the general election to an Alinskyite neo-Marxist whom he used to support, whom he invited to his wedding, and about whom he once said she would make a great president.
As a result of all this, the next time around, when I say, "We have to rally behind the safe, electable candidate," who will have the gall to stand up and say, "No, we need an outsider to fight the Washington establishment"?
Outsiders will be dead in the water for twenty years. The fractured constitutionalist movement will be back in its pen, timidly voting Republican because there is no plausible alternative. Rising anti-establishment threat effectively neutered; progressive ratchet to hell proceeding on schedule.
If I were the Washington establishment, I would be publicly tut-tutting Donald Trump about his rhetoric every day -- and going to sleep with a big smile on my face every night.
Source
RELATED
New Jersey governor Chris Christie endorses Trump for president
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/02/26/exclusive-former-rnc-chairman-michael-steele-boom-trumps-christie-endorsement-was-a-drop-the-mic-moment/
TRUMP'S "NEUTRAL" POSITION ON ISRAEL
(This is not a conflict about land but between Israel and the world of Islam - 1.6 BILLION Muslims. It's about fundamental moral values and the survival of the country - You can't be "neutral".)
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/02/26/gop-debate-ted-cruz-marco-rubio-level-donald-trump-for-his-neutral-position-on-israel-palestinian-conflict/
TRUMP SUPPORTED HILLARY'S LIBYA DEBACLE
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/02/26/cruz-is-correct-trump-supported-hillarys-libya-debacle/
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Previously published on this blog:
UNDECIDED BETWEEN CRUZ AND TRUMP?
LEFTIST ROBERT REICH'S SHORT VIDEO ABOUT "DANGEROUS" CRUZ WILL HELP YOU CHOOSE
- Cruz frightens leftists because of his firm principles, so they would prefer Trump because he is considered more "malleable" (according to Jimmy Carter).
WATCH VIDEO by leftist Robert Reich:
4. Cruz is a loner who’s willing to destroy government institutions to get his way. Trump has spent his career using the federal government and making friends with big shots. Not Cruz. He has repeatedly led Republicans toward fiscal cliffs.
Robert Bernard Reich is an American political economist, professor, author, and political commentator. He served in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter and was Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997. Reich is currently Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. Source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Reich
1. Cruz is more fanatical. Sure, Trump is a bully and bigot, but he doesn’t hew to any sharp ideological line. Cruz is a fierce ideologue.
He denies the existence of man-made climate change, rejects same-sex marriage, wants to abolish the Internal Revenue Service, believes the 2nd amendment guarantees everyone a right to guns.
He doesn’t believe in a constitutional divide between church and state, favors the death penalty, rejects immigration reform, demands the repeal of Obamacare, and takes a strict “originalist” view of the meaning of the Constitution.
2. Cruz is a true believer. Trump has no firm principles except making money, getting attention, and gaining power. But Cruz has spent much of his life embracing radical right economic and political views.
3. Cruz is more disciplined and strategic. Trump is all over the place, often winging it, saying whatever pops into his mind. Cruz hews to a clear script and a carefully crafted strategy. He plays the long game (as he’s shown in Iowa).
4. Cruz is a loner who’s willing to destroy government institutions to get his way. Trump has spent his career using the federal government and making friends with big shots. Not Cruz. He has repeatedly led Republicans toward fiscal cliffs.
In the Fall of 2013, his opposition to Obamacare led in a significant way to the shutdown of the federal government. Both men would be disasters for America, but Ted Cruz would be the larger disaster.
(Cruz sounds better and better as the video goes along, the opposite of what Robert Reich intended.)
Continue reading, including how less principled - or 'fanatical' politicians than Cruz can be made malleable with a good infusion of Muslim donations
This week Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) bashed Trump for insufficient conservatism. He explained, “Donald’s record does not match what he says as a candidate.” Cruz isn’t the only one. Last month, Rush Limbaugh said that Trump’s attacks on Cruz reflected the fact that he was not a “genuine conservative.
This article originally appeared on AlterNet.org - VIA
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RELATED
Former president Carter, the one who counts terrorist Hamas leaders as his close friends, and who writes books to demonize Israel, is terrified of Cruz and would prefer Trump as president because he is MORE MALLEABLE.
 |
| GAZA, where there are no human rights
whatsoever, that's Jimmy Carter's kind of place
as long as they kill Jews.
|
"I think I would choose Trump (over Cruz), which may surprise some of you,” he said.
“The reason is, Trump has proven already he’s completely malleable. I don’t think he has any fixed (positions) he’d go the White House and fight for.
On the other hand, Ted Cruz is not malleable. He has far right wing policies he’d pursue if he became president,” Carter concluded.
 |
| A warm embrace for Hamas leader
Just keep launching those rockets, my friend.
|
Carter expressed that he would ultimately support whomever the Democratic Party’s nominee turns out to be.
“Of course, I’m a Democrat and I will support the nominee,” he stated.
Source
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ON THIS BLOG:
IS DONALD TRUMP A TRUE CONSERVATIVE?
- Breitbart gives us the rundown of his erratic opinion track record
- The strong public approval for Trump and the still lingering support for Hillary Clinton show how voters hear what they want to hear
In a sea of electoral candidates' mediocrity, and with at least one top candidate with a very disturbing past, Donald Trump has managed to rise to the top without having to explain much about his views - just by the power of a few slogans and politically incorrect statements that resonate with an angry public.
As you will see below, he happily makes up his mind as he goes along, according political winds or his mood of the day.
Republicans are deeply divided, while Democrats are still supporting a candidate who apparently broke important government security laws, and who could very likely end up serving a jail sentence.
Such lack of scrutiny by supporters is dangerous. It shows how easily American voters can be emotionally swayed without having to think too hard. Recent presidential choices show how people vote without bothering to consider the consequences.
The following is Breitbart's editor Ben Shapiro's analysis of Donald Trump's erratic opinion track record.
By Ben Shapiro, Breitbart
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| TRUMP |
Mark Levin said in 2011, “Trump is NOT the real deal… He is not a conservative. He was happy to donate to Schumer, Weiner & Emanuel campaigns last year. He was pro-choice recently and now claims to be pro-life. He sounds more and more like Ross Perot.” Andrew Breitbart said at the time, “Of course he’s not a conservative. He was for Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) before he was against Nancy Pelosi."
I don’t believe Trump is a conservative either; I’ve said that repeatedly. Full disclosure: I’ve also said that I would vote for Ted Cruz if the primaries took place today. I’ve also said that Trump channels conservative anger against the establishment brilliantly, and that he has become a vessel for much-needed conversations on immigration.
With all that said, it’s worthwhile exploring Trump’s worldview. To do that, we must separate two elements of that worldview: his current positions, and his historic positions. The first goes to supposed conservatism, and the second goes to credibility – even if he says he’s conservative today, should you believe him?
Much of the blame for conservative and populist support for Trump is due to the GOP's own dilution of its core values. GOP Congressmen are conservative in name only, having shamelessly aligned themselves with mainstream Democrat policies for a long time. (Blogger)
We’ll go through the issues here (thanks to Conservative Review for a handy guide to Trump’s positions as well). We report, you decide:
Immigration. After a career of flip-flopping on immigration (he ripped Mitt Romney in 2012 for being too harsh on illegal immigration and in 2013 said he hired illegals at his golf courses),
Trump has famously taken the most right-wing position on illegal immigration in this race. I wrote about it when Trump released it on his website. Trump wants a wall, shutting down remittances garnered from illegal wages, and foreign aid cuts. He wants strong deportation policies and an end to birthright citizenship.
Because many Republicans feel that the immigration issue is the prerequisite for any continuation of a small government republic, Trump has made hay on this issue.
Meanwhile, Trump flipped on Muslim refugees. Originally he said the U.S. would have to take in Syrian refugees; then he said he would take in no Muslim immigrants at all. That position has proved surprisingly durable with the conservative electorate.
Foreign Policy. Trump’s been all over the place here. He’s said we should leave the Islamic State to Russia and expressed sympathy for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, but also said that we should “bomb the s***” out of ISIS. He has both said that he would topple Bashar Assad and that he would not arm the Syrian rebels. In the end, he said he had a great idea for defeating ISIS, but wouldn’t tell anyone what it was.
He’s said that he wouldn’t immediately get rid of the Iran deal, but he stumped against the deal. He’s talked about how he admires China, but then explained he wants to put a 45 percent tariff on Chinese goods. Trump wants to expand the military, but how he would use that expanded military is far from clear.
Abortion. Trump says he’s pro-life. Bethany Blankley of Live Action News gives a solid roundup of the timeline:
1999: Trump says he is “very pro-choice” and said he wouldn’t ban partial birth abortion.
January 2015: Trump says he is “pro-life, with the caveats. You have to have the caveats.” What would those caveats be? He explains: “life of the mother, incest, and rape.” Asked repeatedly whether abortion outside of his “caveats” would be murder, he says, “it depends when.”
August 2015: Trump tells CNN’s Chris Cuomo, “Maybe some of the things [Planned Parenthood does] are good and I know a lot of things are bad… I mean, it’s like an abortion factory, frankly.” He then says he is pro-life and reiterates his “exceptions.” He tells Sean Hannity:
There’s two Planned Parenthoods, in a way. You have it as an abortion clinic. Now, that’s actually a fairly small part of what they do, but it’s a brutal part, and I’m totally against it. They also, however, service women. Maybe unless they stop with the abortions, we don’t do the funding for the stuff that we want. We have to help women. So we have to look at the positives, also, for Planned Parenthood.
Eventually he told Breitbart he’d oppose any government funding for Planned Parenthood.
During the first Republican debate, Trump says that he became pro-life sometime over the last few years, stating:
Friends of mine years ago were going to have a child, and it was going to be aborted. And it wasn’t aborted. And that child today is a total superstar, a great, great child. And I saw that. And I saw other instances. I am very, very proud to say that I am pro-life.
Jamie Weinstein of The Daily Caller asked Trump if he’d have become pro-life if the kid had been a “loser.” Trump said no.
October 2015: Trump says he would appoint his sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, to the Supreme Court – even though she has ruled in favor of partial birth abortion. As to overturning Roe v. Wade, Trump says, “you need a lot of Supreme Court justices, but we’re gonna be looking at that also very, very carefully,”
This week, Trump said that he would think about pick pro-choice former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown for his vice president. He has never said that he would ban all abortions except for his exceptions – he’s left vague how early he’d ban abortion.
A shocked media can't figure out why their usual tricks to destroy a candidate don't work with Donald Trump. One reason is that he does not kowtow to them. He does not even bother to explain his blunders. He neither fears nor respects the media. This attitude is refreshing and conservatives love it. (Blogger)
Same-Sex Marriage. Trump says he’s anti-same sex marriage but that it’s the “law of the land.” In August, he said, “Some people have hopes of passing amendments, but it’s not going to happen. Congress can’t pass simple things, let alone that. So anybody that’s making that an issue is doing it for political reasons. The Supreme Court ruled on it.”
In December 2014, he reportedly told gay activist George Takei that he’d gone to a same-sex wedding and found it “beautiful.” Trump did say that he didn’t think Kentucky court clerk Kim Davis should have been jailed.
Religious Freedom. Trump pledges to uphold religious freedom but has not commented on the Indiana Religious Freedom and Restoration Act or any other similar act protecting religious practice in the face of leftist non-discrimination laws designed to quash religious observance.
Entitlements. Unlike virtually all the other Republican candidates, Trump has said he wouldn’t touch entitlements. He says that any Republican attempts to touch these programs will end in electoral defeat. His website currently carries an article from The Daily Signal titled, “Why Trump Won’t Touch Your Entitlements.”
He said then, “I’m not going to cut Social Security like every other Republican and I’m not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid. Every other Republican is going to cut, and even if they wouldn’t, they don’t know what to do because they don’t know where the money is. I do.”
He bashed Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) ’s plans for entitlements for being “too far out front with the issue.” Trump has, however, said that certain parts of Social Security could be moved to private accounts – although he then says that he will save Social Security without cuts by discovering magical barrels of money: “I know where to get the money from. Nobody else does.”
He said then, “I’m not going to cut Social Security like every other Republican and I’m not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid. Every other Republican is going to cut, and even if they wouldn’t, they don’t know what to do because they don’t know where the money is. I do.”
He bashed Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) ’s plans for entitlements for being “too far out front with the issue.” Trump has, however, said that certain parts of Social Security could be moved to private accounts – although he then says that he will save Social Security without cuts by discovering magical barrels of money: “I know where to get the money from. Nobody else does.”
Campaign Finance Reform. Trump is for it, and he routinely attacks super PACs. Just last week, he said, “I think you need it.” He added, “Somebody gives them money, not anything wrong, just psychologically when they go to that person, they’re going to do it. They owe them. And by the way, they may therefore vote negatively toward the country. That’s not going to happen with me.” Campaign finance reform places outsized influence in the hands of the government and unions and quashes free speech.
TED CRUZ - Where he stands on issues
Government's Involvement In The Economy. Trump accuses Ted Cruz of being a Wall Street insider because his wife works for Goldman Sachs. Trump himself supported Obama’s 2009 stimulus, TARP, and the 2008 auto bailout. He said in 2009, “I think [Obama’s] doing very well. You do need stimulus and you do have to keep the banks alive.”
He’s admitted over and over to paying elected officials to grease the skids on his deals – although, in fairness, he says that’s just how you have to work to get business done.
In 2009, he said that the government should cap executive pay. Trump supported the Supreme Court’s egregious Kelo v. New London (2005) decision, in which the court absurdly declared that the government could seize private property and turn it over to another private party so long as the second party paid additional taxes on it. Trump explained, “I happen to agree with [the decision] 100%.”
Most right wing media support him unquestionably,
so tired they are of the wimpy GOP.
Education. Trump opposes Common Core but has flip-flopped on whether he’d do away with the Department of Education; he told the South Carolina Tea Party last year that he wouldn’t dump them completely. “Certainly you could cut [that] way down,” Trump said, but added that he’d keep it alive for “coordination,” as Conservative Review points out.
Healthcare. Trump says he’d dump Obamacare but then praises the nationalized health care system of Canada and Great Britain. In 1999 and 2000 he endorsed nationalized health care openly; in 2015, he praised Scotland’s plan while appearing with David Letterman. He has proposed dumping restrictions on health care portability but continues to pump up nationalized health care systems. In September he told Hannity:
As far as single-payer and all — there’s so many different things you could have. Honestly, Sean, to do, to have great health insurance. The one thing I do tell people, we’re going to have something great. We’re going to repeal and replace Obamacare, which is a total disaster.
Tax Plan. Trump’s tax plan is certainly conservative. He proposes lowering the top tax bracket to 25 percent, drops the capital gains tax to 20 percent, dumps the death tax, and drops the corporate rate to 15 percent. The Tax Foundation states:
Our analysis finds that the plan would reduce federal revenues by $11.98 trillion over the next decade. However, it also would improve incentives to work and invest, which could increase gross domestic product (GDP) by 11 percent over the long term. This increase in GDP would translate into 6.5 percent higher wages and 5.3 million new full-time equivalent jobs. After accounting for increased incomes due to these factors, the plan would only reduce tax revenues by $10.14 trillion.
That’s different from his past positions on taxes, which include fighting the flat tax and proposing a wealth tax that would force owners to liquidate their property to pay taxes every year.
Trade. Trump is for international tariffs, including an extraordinarily heavy tariff on Chinese goods, in the mistaken belief that this somehow helps the American economy. Tariffs certainly benefit protected sectors, but they hurt American consumers and destroy American purchasing power. Trump also wants to leave mandatory union dues alone – or at least he hasn’t commented differently on the issue for several years.
Guns. Trump has become progressively more pro-Second Amendment over time. His website states: “The Second Amendment to our Constitution is clear. The right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed upon. Period.”
So, there you have it: Trump’s mixed record on conservatism, even at present, belies the notion that he sees eye-to-eye with the Tea Party. Actually, Trump is far more populist than conservative — which means he has appeal to blue-collar Democrats, but also that he may not reliably stand by conservative principles in office.
In fact, given his repeated position switching, the safe bet is that anything he says today will changed based on convenience. That should not encourage any conservative thinking of Trump in the primaries.
Source
AUTHOR - Ben Shapiro is Senior Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News, Editor-in-Chief of DailyWire.com, and The New York Times bestselling author, most recently, of the book, The People vs. Barack Obama: The Criminal Case Against The Obama Administration (Threshold Editions, June 10, 2014). Follow Ben Shapiro on Twitter @benshapiro.
CARTOONS - All but the last one on this page are by the excellent A.F. BRANCO
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