What a difference a few years make: Trump, then and now
In the 2012 election there was a not insignificant amount of ire towards the GOP coming from the GOP base. But in the years since, that anger and frustration has reached a fever pitch.
This may account for odd changes such as the fact that Mark Levin excoriated Trump in this clip from 2011, but now doesn’t sing the same tune although the facts he sets out here have not changed in the least (it’s the topmost clip on the page, the one that’s 12:01 minutes long; I can’t figure out a way to embed it).
You can hear lots of fascinating stuff there. Trump likes Nancy Pelosi (5:14). He wanted her to impeach George W. Bush (5:25), because he says Bush lied about WMDs. At 6:27 he speculates that it would be hard to even imagine a worse president than Bush. At 7:26 you hear Trump saying President Bush is evil. He then contrasts Obama (who at the time he was speaking had been elected but not inaugurated), saying that Obama has:
…a chance to go down as a great president…I think he’s going to lead through consensus. It’s not just going to be just a bull run like Bush did—he just did whatever the hell he wanted—go into a country and attack Iraq, which had nothing to do with the World Trade Center, and just do it because he wanted to do it.
Here’s one more clip. In it, Trump has high praise for Hillary Clinton (it’s from 2007, when she was running for president) and sounds as though he was at least thinking of voting for her if she had been nominated:
This man isn’t just not a conservative. He often sounds like a liberal Democrat. Those of you who are supporting Trump, do these clips change your mind at all? Is it really that much fun to give the finger to the GOP, when it’s yourself (and the country) you might be screwing?
Neo quoting Trump: “It’s not just going to be just a bull run like Bush did–he just did whatever the hell he wanted–go into a country and attack Iraq, which had nothing to do with the World Trade Center, and just do it because he wanted to do it.”
Again, explanation (link) of the law and policy, fact basis for Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Neo,
I may not be the prototypical Trump supporter but since I’ve been one of the most frequent commenterw here on why I support him, I’ll try again to explain.
First, I have been reading your blog (and occasionally commenting) for many years – not sure how many at this point but since at least early 2008. So I have long seen that you ‘get’ so many things that are not apparent to others, which no doubt is why you are a changer. What I don’t understand you not ‘getting’ is what now seems so apparent to me — that in fact, there is no material difference between the left (Dem) and ‘right’ (Repub) wings of the establishment party.
Darkly amusing to myself, I used to (prior to the last 4-6 years) scoff at this viewpoint, remembering the difference between Carter and Reagan (I was in the military at that time – wow!). But that’s not where we are now. Now we are in the era of the difference between, say, Reid and McConnell. Which is to say, only a labeling issue. As Wretchard’s commentors have coined it, the GOPe is made up of ‘DIABLO’ – Democrats In All But Label Only’. I won’t laboriously reiterate all the evidence that the Republican elite has joined with the left in the Unipolar party — you can find those lists easily enough so for some reason it seems you discount that evidence.
But suffice it to say that at this point, I am convinced that the Republican party is not a genuine alternative to the left. That means it chokes off the air (absorbing the money and time) of ‘real’ conservatives, many of whom still try to animate the GOP to act conservative.
So since the GOP accomplishes NOTHING that a conservative would support, the GOP needs to die to allow space for a conservative party, much as a large weed needs to pulled to allow a flower to be planted and grow.
Trump is not a conservative, true. But he has and will retain media exposure in a way that no conservative candidate can or will. And he will fight (for himself, yes) in a way that will continue to attract the many millions who are disgusted with the GOPe, and more largely, political correctness/left cultural hegemony. This means he has a fighting chance to be elected since he will FIGHT, attracting supporters and (unhappy) media coverage, unlike the “real” GOP candidates.
Yes, Cruz, probably Walker, maybe Fiorina, would attempt to fight but they do not and will not (for reasons I expect you would agree on) have the media to make their efforts effective. (And that’s assuming the *best* case: that Cruz/Walker/Fiorina are not subverted into the Borg as the price of the financial support needed to mount real campaigns).
On the other hand, the media can NOT turn away from Trump in the same way they cannot turn away from a car crash. It is just “such compelling footage”. And he is canny and tough enough to laugh off their attempts to make him crawl away wounded.
So Trump, and probably only Trump in the GOP mix – has a chance to be elected. Since he is clearly not a part of the GOPe, he will certainly shake things up, even if not elected. In fact, he already has, IMO for the better. And again, he will mainly be following the lodestar of what seems right to Mr. Trump, at the moment of decision. Not a well-thought-out view of the world that conservatives will recognize. Many of these decisions will likely go wrongly.
The time to have elected a turn-it-around conservative was long ago, but the GOPe has blocked and demoralized conservatives. So in my view we are already in that car heading over the cliff, so we must accept the risks accompanying a relatively unmoored (sorry for mixed metaphors) Trump. We do this hoping to see realized the prospect that he destroys or disrupts the fast-growing tyranny of the Unipolar party. Nothing else in sight seems likely to.
Hoping for change – that’s what we are down to now, and I admit is a dismal ‘strategy’.
Great find Neo.
This needs to be more widely known. Will the Joe Ricketts PAC supporting Walker run an ad with this info? Dynamite stuff.
OriginalFrank.
Cruz calls it the Washington cartel.
Carly calls it the Professional Political Class.
Scott doesn’t have a meme. Big problem.
Funny how so many here like the Big Three.
I think Frank summarized the rationale of many Trump supporters and articulated their collective frustration. It is frustration I share, as do many on this blog. I also appreciate Frank’s frank (no pun intended) acknowledgment Trump is no conservative and largely will pursue his own interests. I agree and it’s refreshing to see someone clearly state the tacit goal of many Trump supporters. It’s about overturning the political hegemony and Trump is the only candidate who can maybe, just maybe, succeed in this endeavor.
I respect this viewpoint greatly. And I’m sympathetic to it. But I disagree to the extent that I think a Cruz or Fiorina election would also be quote disruptive AND I think either is electable, under the right circumstances. Furthermore, I simply cannot cast my vote, my small yet sacred influence on the political process, for a man for whom I have no respect, for nothing more than instrumental hopefulness. While I’ve grown very cynical about American politics, my own character compels me to vote for the man qua man (or woman qua woman); for their own character, abilities and policy positions first, for party second, and for broader socio-political implications third.
I could not maintain self-respect in voting for Trump. Period. Regardless of any abstract potential benefits might result from a chain of events after his election (or defeat)
But maybe that’s just me.
OriginalFrank: “the GOP needs to die to allow space for a conservative party”
This is the fundamental flaw that misguides your Trump project, which is a version of the error made by the Tea Party.
The solution is not a conservative political “party”, though that can and should exist secondarily. The solution is a Marxist-method conservative social activist movement primarily.
The Tea Party was effective with growing social influence as long as the movement was a social cultural/political campaign on a Gramscian march where electoral politics were merely part of the bundle, rather than the primary concern. But they self-defeated when they chose to choke off their own social activist movement by pigeon-holing it within electoral politics via the GOP.
The Tea Party failed to realize that their Gramscian march was the source of their (self-truncated) power and platform. Gathering votes was merely a useful effect for one stick of the bundle. Seeking elected office was not their primary purpose. Once elected office was made their primary purpose, they cut themselves off from the source of their power and platform.
Your Trump project is essentially repeating the same mistake in a different version.
GOP politicians, like Democrat politicians, respond to their structural environment. Effective reform of the GOP requires reform of the structural environment. That’s the Gramscian march. The Left has done it. The Tea Party started it until they were enticed off track by a lazy, unimaginative shortcut that dead-ended in the status quo.
The Trump project is merely another shortcut baited with the same false promise that enticed the Tea Party to go off track.
Blowing up the GOP from within sans the necessary structural environmental reform will only accomplish blowing up the GOP and strengthening the hand of winning Left activists and their Democratic agents.
The solution you seek is properly Right activism in which electoral politics are not primary but merely part of the bundle, whereas conservatives primarily compete to socially engineer cultural/political reform throughout society.
Win those battles to change the structural environment, defeat Left activists, and thereby gain the dominant power for conservatives to guide the GOP and hold the GOP accountable. Once the zeitgeist is controlled by conservatives with its attendant real levers, it won’t take much with the stage reset for GOP politicians to behave accordingly. By the same token, Democrats will be constrained by the conservative-reformed Overton window.
Does the formula work? It’s already working now, except for Left activists that hold sway over the Democrats and constrain the GOP.
Aim bigger than the GOP, OriginalFrank. Win with a Gramscian march and the GOP will come along with you.
Ackler,
Good point. Truly. And an honorable one – thinking of Horatio here.
However, I voted for MCain in 2008, so I have long since given up only voting for those I respect. (Unlike Trump, I dislike McCain not for his capture, but because he is a blowhard, shoot-from-the-hip, member in good standing of GOPe. So other than the GOPe part, reminds me of Trump!)
Having fixed foremost on the desire to save what’s left of our historic society and country, I held my nose and voted for McCain. So I am likely to do the same for Trump when the time comes.
To me, it’s now all about saving what might be saved, and I put my pride below saving my daughter’s (and others’) future.
Most Trump supporters are the stereotypical low-information types, though probably not those who comment here. Many of them will not vote, especially in primaries. Others will tell pollsters that they support him, but won’t in fact vote for him. So, he won’t be nominated, let alone elected. The real danger is that he will run as an independent and put Hillary in the White House. That, of course, is exactly what Hillary wants, which is why she called him and probably encouraged him to run. Conservatives should think hard about that before supporting him.
OriginalFrank:
If I understand your premise, making Trump the Republican nominee will kill the Republican Party and permit a genuine conservative party to spring up and flourish.
Could you sketch two scenarios where this happens, one if Trump wins the presidency as the Republican nominee and one where he loses as the Republican nominee?
It is difficult to make out how Trump overturns any political hegemony (so-called, and falsely, if a hegemony supposes some alternative under repression by that hegemony), insofar as Trump manfully embodies the politics of the day, the hour, the time, the era. He is, one might say, the very model of the post-Constitutional “conservative”, i.e., one who never mentions the Constitution when describing himself as a conservative to Levin in answer to Levin’s question “What kind of conservative are you?”
But then, when one is yuge, immense, superlative in every way, merely by being oneself, what need of trivialities like the Constitution? None, really.
Eric, the left took 60 years in the face of an unsuspecting traditional society. We now have the left/Uniparty commanding all major cultural assets so can’t expect to do better. I don’t believe we have 6 months left; never mind 60 years.
Tonawanda, Well, there are many possibilities but only some can produce what is needed. If you really want some hypothetical futures, I will sketch some out later (in movie theatre now awaiting start).
But my rejoinder is: there is a near zero chance that doing what we have been doing the last 20 years will result in a different outcome. So time to chance it, and hope.
Sorry 60 months, not 6!
Wooly Bully:
People need to recall that the Iowa event does not consist of going to the local school and voting for five minutes. You have to find where the local caucus is (sometimes a house) and spend two hours on a February night. That rules out only the most motivated. As few as 120k GOP members are expected at the caucus. Trump’s people could either create a landslide, not show or flip their votes in those two hours. It is NOT a primary.
One advantage of the Iowa system is it rules out voting by illegal aliens. At least I hope so.
“So time to chance it, and hope.”
“Hope and chance” instead of “hope and change”? No, thank you.
There we go.
The Constitutional United States was nothing more than a traditional society like all the others before it. Nothing more than a feeble tradition underlay it. So much superstition and metaphysics. That is, like those others (the French, the Russians) which had also learned how their old and decrepit traditions would no longer support their existence. They learned that once that tradition could be abandoned for something new, shiny, immense and powerful, like History, or Science, they would be assured of a permanent future. For these new creations in turn were to be never so weak as mere societies founded on a tradition, for they are absolute. No change may touch them, for they each posit perfection itself. What a glory of a time we have coming.
Cornhead: Well, I guess we’ll see soon enough whether conservatives decide to burn down the party in order to save it.
Cornhead,
In light of Trump’s statement on President Bush and Iraq that Neo quotes here, and like the immigration issue is the litmus test for many conservatives, this is my litmus test for the fitness of 2016 presidential candidates to be Commander in Chief:
What is Carly Fiorina’s answer to the Megyn Kelly “knowing what we know now” hypothetical regarding President Bush’s decision for Operation Iraqi Freedom? And, if not originally included in her answer, what is Fiorina’s explanation of her answer to the hypothetical?
OriginalFrank: “Eric, the left took 60 years in the face of an unsuspecting traditional society. We now have the left/Uniparty commanding all major cultural assets so can’t expect to do better.”
No. Not “unsuspecting”.
Left activists have openly marched on our cultural institutions while the should-be countervailing parties have self-neutered and gone along instead of competed.
Meanwhile, aside from a few instances of spontaneous but ultimately isolated counter-Left resistance, the people of the Right got out of the way – often with self-righteous justifications – in the face of the Left’s open maneuver.
Your Trump project is another retreat from actually competing against the Left, this time with a justification for self-destructive commission added to the usual concessionary omission.
You’re correct that electoral politics as usual are insufficient. They’ve always been insufficient on their own in a nation that was founded in the first place by radical activists.
So you want to change course with an untried radical solution? Then compete for real in the only social cultural/political game there is. Be activist and stop justifying retreat.
I have commented about this before but I will say it again:
I am not a Trump supporter for the office of President.
I do support any force (and I believe Trump applies) that might cause the extinction of the GOP as we know it.
I think that I probably couldn’t explain my beliefs much better than OriginalFrank already has. The Uniparty concept is spot on. With the exception of Walker, Cruz or Fiorina, (And I’m still not completely sold on any of them), the entire GOP field is nothing but:
1) Moral cowards and backbiting parasites living off the largesse of a bloated Crony Capitalist system.
2) RINOs/ DIABLOs, whatever term one might prefer.
3) and being classified as such, have abandoned all principles, all pretense even, of respecting American values, American Exceptionalism, and Conservative policy.
It’s time they went extinct. Because, America as we knew it, is on its way. I can’t think of any reason a Republican win, even a win by Cruz, Walker or Fiorina is going to change enough of the Uniparty Clusterf@&$ in Washington DC.
I just don’t see it. There is no candidate, no matter how good, that is going to be the magic bullet here. We need a sea change and I believe the only way we’ll see such a thing is if the GOP ( McConnell, Boehner, Jeb!, Christie, et al) go the way of the Dodo.
It is my belief that most republicans and conservative everyday folks, not attached to the machine, have their hearts in the right place but are now too afraid to let the GOP die. And it needs to die. It has compromised and submitted its way into irrelevance.
I think Trump is the best avenue for that. He’s no conservative, no serious candidate at all. He’s an F5 tornado of telegenic personality that might, just might wreck the system enough that something good can be rebuilt in his wake.
And I am not even very sanguine about that. But at this point a Republican win will be no different than Democratic win. I believe anyone who thinks that is willfully deluding themselves.
Original Frank: lol … enjoy the movie!
I cannot envision any scenario where Trump’s presence in the race, let alone his nomination as Republican candidate, leads to a better America.
Specifically, I cannot envision any scenario where Trump strengthens the conservative movement, leads to a conservative party, or destroys the GOPe.
(And although I cannot prove it, I am concerned that Trump in fact is playing a deeply dishonest game which is intended to nail the coffin shut on constitutional government).
I always enjoy your posts and am sincerely curious what scenarios you envision, but I ask in a respectful way and not to put you on the spot.
Cruz, Fiorina, Walker and Jindal are each candidates that conservatives have never seen before, ever, including RR. They have the rare qualities we need, not the least of which is a plausible projection of Thatcherite resolve. (And recall how Britain was in what looked to be an inescapable mess).
I am repeating myself but here goes. I enrolled as a Conservative when I turned 18 (1970) and in my entire life with only several exceptions I have never had a candidate for president I could love the way all my liberal/leftist friends regularly could vote for folks who made them 100% happy.
RR, Phil Crane and Phil Graham were it. I loved Alan Keyes and could listen to him by the hour, but he never had a chance.
Now there are four people I absolutely love, four people who actually hold out promise of a Thatcher government. Four people who (unlike RR) could be president with a ruling majority who might be savvy enough to change the rules to get things done.
And what can be done could be a great start on the long term project. What can be done would be along the lines of Walker in Wisconsin, battles which could realistically be won.
Get the government out of education totally (except for payment). Prohibit public sector unions totally. Defund NPR, PP, etc etc.
Eradicate the IRS. Get 501(c)(3) organizations out of politics.
In other words, aggressively attack and defund the elaborate government supported army of leftists which occupies our nation.
This is a realistic agenda if done cleverly, intelligently, and with resolve.
If you blow up the GOP it will not be replaced by a conservative party anytime soon. What will happen is that the Dems will win the next half a dozen elections unopposed. The opposition party will then move to the left (just not as left as the Dems will have become) in order to win. This is not merely a hypothesis, it is what happened in the UK. The Labour party blew up allowing Margret Thatcher to win 3 elections virtually unopposed then Labour under Tony Blair moved to the right to get elected. After a number of years of Labour rule the Conservative party had to move to the left under David Cameron to get elected.
I’ve been reading this blog since 2008ish but only occasionally comment. I have pointed out the above a few times in the last 8 years.
The only solution is one of activism and voting for the most conservative candidate available, but always voting. For those that say its too late we don’t even have 60 months, well that’s just how it is. There is no short cut.
I’m beginning to think the main reason Trump decided to run is to stick it to the Bush family. He did wait until Jeb made his own announcement, after all, and it must have been great fun for him to steal Jeb’s moment in the spotlight — Trump announced just one day after Jeb, and he did so with a silly, off-the-cuff speech.
Must be something about those blue-bloods that really gets under his skin.
I am not a Trump supporter, but the GOP screwed itself and screwed the country. It’s their fault.
Pro-Trump conservative: “I’m going to vote for a liberal Republican! That’ll show those #@&!% RINOs!”
1. Trump is not a conservative. 2. He’s a wealthy, bombastic, clinton saboteur. 3. He has no desire to be president, he just enjoys stirring the pot in the spotlight. 4. My Donald fatigue began the first time I witnessed one of his narcissistic rants.
Now can we move on to discussing the 4 real conservative candidates who have tossed their hats into the ring? 😉
Back from movie – pretty good as mindless diversion.
Possibilities where Trump destroys GOP:
1. He is not nominated despite having major support from disgruntled GOP and LIV. (Some here would seem to be saying these are unity.). His ego drives him to third party; draws more voters than Perot, Anderson, etc. GOP has dismal vote, collapses in bickering and the BullTrump party is born. But lacking any real coherent center, could be taken over by the remnants of Tea Party. (Yes, could – you asked for possibilities – I offer no certainties.)
2. Trump is nominated but loses. Some variants on #1 are possible (though less likely I think) where he is sufficiently commanding in vote totals to remain the front runner next time. Any here I overlay Cuccinelli experience: it will have been obvious to many Trump voters that the GOP behaved treacherously, failing to truly back him. Long-suppressed party differences turn into open party fighting, conservatives finally depart GOP, leaving a shell without activists or sufficient financial resource. The *opportunity* for a true Conservative party follows.
3. Trump is elected, despite best efforts of GOPe. He knows they attempted sabotage, and devotes himself to building a party without them. Lacking a real world view of his own, conservatives have a *chance* to become the activating element, since by definition the GOPe will be excluded.
Yes, these are simply fictional possibilities at this point (you asked for them;-) and odds are against each one. But the reality is that the current state is simply a deceit maintained by the GOPe – that the party responds to the base, and that it attempts to act on conservative principles. These are IMO total lies, so taking a chance to replace the GOP with a party that cares about the founding principles is worthwhile.
Eric, again, I don’t disagree that activism / the long march would be a way to reverse the stituation however I still maintain we do not have the available time that the left did (and less and less time each day for many reasons). Also, the left knows the game expertly from their easy, slow march, and will resist as traditional US society never did. With their almost total control of academia, education, media, entertainment, and the Uniparty leadership, and the left’s deep expertise with the long march, conservatives can not get a foothold needed to start, let along complete it, even if given the time (which I do not believe we have).
Call that defeatist if you will – I call it facing facts and attempting to find a path that is NOT totally controlled by he opposition.
“The only solution is one of activism and voting for the most conservative candidate available, but always voting. For those that say its too late we don’t even have 60 months, well that’s just how it is. There is no short cut.”
As only ONE element in why we don’t have time for a long march or repeated voting for the treacherous GOPe (which has proven it will not act in support of the country’s interest), Iran will have nukes in far less than 60 months and has been testing high altitude release ballistic missiles. If the U.S. Is not visited with an Iranian EMP long before the 60 months elapses, I will consider us very, very fortunate.
Would Trump prevent this? Maybe not. But we KNOW that the GOPe has been passively observing the dismantling of our military forces and our military leadership. So it’s not that Trump is necessarily the solution: it’s that the GOPe is the anti-solution; almost anything would represent an improvement.
And then there is the crushing US debt and dollar printing presses running at full tilt, the Feds indicating that net neutrality will require them to suppress Drudge and Fox, the full scale data collection on us all, and the – I am SURE unrelated, ‘unexpected’ acquiescence of the Supreme Court with outrageous extra-constitutional actions of the administration.
This ‘long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce [the people] under absolute Despotism’.
Not words of great interest in the UK, I expect, but they mean something to me.
Original Frank,
Yes, highly unlikely scenarios. 😉 We have a new critter in American politics: The Trump Chumps.
@parker, given the fairly coherent positions of others here, I’d posit that ‘TrumpLumps’ would be well-accepted.
Original Frank: They do mean something to me as I’ve been resident in the US for 14 years; I currently live in Atlanta.
Unfortunately I don’t see any of your scenarios as leading to the outcome you desire. There are no short cuts and any of the Trump scenarios you suggest will move America to the left. And believe me there isn’t a cliff we are going to go over. Things can continue as they are and get worse for far longer than the “let it burn” crowd ( Neo’s term) think.
Simon Black thinks Trump is exactly what this country needs:
He is, after all, unique in his field. Donald Trump has never served in politics, and his blunt style is almost the exact opposite of every other major candidate.
But there’s one thing that really sets him apart, that, in my opinion, makes him the most qualified person for the job:
Donald Trump is an expert at declaring bankruptcy.
When the going gets tough, Trump stiffs his creditors. He’s done it four times!
Candidly, this is precisely what the Land of the Free needs right now: someone who can stop beating around the bush and just get on with it already.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-15/1-reason-why-donald-trump-what-america-needs-and-desereves
@LT,, I hope you are right, and all the apparent express trains bearing down on us are just fireflies.
But since that is not what I perceive, it makes sense to me to attempt what can be attempted to avert pending impacts. And as a start, finding a key to end the GOPe that has lulled conservatives (over and over and over and over) into false hope seems right to me.
Hell, Trump is the natural extrapolation from Obama. Both are Rulers.
High- handed Imperium is here.
That a Bush and a Clinton are both “running” is further evidence of the Imperium.
The masses eat it up.
The rest of us are cowards. If we were not, Fiorina and Cruz would be awash in donations.
Original Frank: But if you are correct that we have so little time then I don’t see how your solution of destroying the GOP helps. Surely it just ensures that at least the next three or four presidential elections are won by the Dems. That’s well past your disaster timeline.
@LT: not as I see it. Or not necessarily so since the election of Trump would accelerate near term changes. There are many things a non-Dem/non-GOPe-aligned President could do on election to address the problems headed our way. While Trump may or may not do any of them, we can be pretty confident (based on the last 10 years or so, and especially the last 6) that Dems and GOPe presidents will not.
Even now, unelected, Trump continues to disrupt Dem and GOPe plans, which has great value in and of itself. The final outcomes all depend on unknowables. Or at least, I am sure *I* don’t know them.
The GOPe (and GOP as controlled by it) currently serves no useful purpose that I can see (except for the interests of the GOPe and rest of the Uniparty). So better to take an honest swing at a replacement as fast as possible, than to wait and repeat the continued errors. You know what they say about doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.
Trump does not disrupt dem plans, he is a part of the plan. Its so obvious because it is larger than it appears in your rear view mirror. Trump Chumps need to invest in ocean front property in Iowa…. global warming and other nonsense
People are obviously hoping for the Samson option. Pull down the temple on all parties!
I don’t think The Donald would do it, though. He’s basically a go-along, get-along operator. (Though I did like how he took the Wollman skating rink in Central Park, which had been “under construction” by the goobermint for Years, and finished it in a few months: that was fun.)
http://www.wollmanskatingrink.com/
Mark Levin’s answer also has a basic problem: he’s assuming we’re still in the “Lex, rex” era, when we’ve actually been dragged into the “Rex, lex” era. And it don’t pleasure me none to say so, ma’am.
Wollman Rink history:
“The rink was closed in 1980 for an announced 2 1/2 years of renovations. When the problem-plagued work was not completed by the city by 1986, Donald Trump persuaded Mayor Ed Koch to let him complete the work and he completed the renovations in three months to have it open by the end of the year.
“Koch initially objected to Trump’s proposal when Trump offered to pay for the renovations himself with the stipulation that he be allowed to run the venue and an adjacent restaurant and use the profits to recoup his costs. Public pressure prompted Mayor Koch to reverse his position.”
How many times did I post:
The MSM will praise him, raise him…
Then destroy him.
These clips have been around ALL this time.
There never was any chance that the Donald would make it to the Convention.
STAY ON HRC.
Don’t get distracted by Trump.
No doubt Trump is a mischief maker. We knew that from the start. Until now it’s been fun watching him burn and slash establish Republicanism with his focus on illegal immigration. I’ve certainly enjoyed it. But today with release of his “plan” it is obvious that he wants to destroy the Republican Party.
He knows that it is impossible, physically and logistically, to deport between 11 million and 20 million people, break up families, some of whom are now citizens by birth, without massive civil unrest. We would have protests not seen since the Vietnam War days. And we would have open defiance with the Catholic Church leading it.
Trump’s aim has become crystal clear. He intends to lead the right into a campaign of ethnic cleansing in order to completely discredit it. It’s a toss up who he’s working for, the DNC or the Chamber of Commerce. Either way, this Lonesome Rhodes” must be exposed and stopped.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaLQMs_VDLw
Original Frank is spot on. This is just as much a rebellion against the R establishment as anything else. Trump is the only one that can get the attention to beat the establishment’s money advantage. All the rebels want is for Trump to deliver on the 1 big issue that the establishment has refused to solve foe 15 years–immigration. If he delivers on that any other conservative issues he delivers on is gravy.
Phil Dayton:
Trump is the Hope and Change candidate du jour. There is absolutely no reason to believe he can deliver on his promises or even knows how he would begin to go about doing these things. But hope (as in 2008) is a potent motivator to those who lead with their guts and who want desperately to fill in the blanks and excuse Trump all the astounding things he’s said (Bush is evil?).
I wonder whether you even listened to that 2011 tape from Levin. Let me quote Trump on Nancy Pelosi:
Levin’s response back then was, “Does this sound like a rational human being to you?” Well, rationality has no more to do with Trump’s appeal than it did with Obama’s. He is now the miracle Lightworker of the “let it burn!” crowd. Their rage at the restablishment GOP has short-circuited their brains. They think they can control the results when the left wins the next election, when the only results will be that the left entrenches itself even further in American thought, and brings in enough illegal immigrants and then their citizen children to permanently establish the left in power here.
The media, as expected, seem to be concentrating on Trump’s stated plan to deport all illegals. That’s going to be a very tough meme for the Republicans to dismantle. From Commentary:
Full article here.
I hope this WSJ link works:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-made-millions-from-multilevel-marketing-firm-1439481128?mod=trending_now_2
It’s another example of Trump making money and denying all responsibility.
This is a man who only values money and expects the rest of us to agree with him. His hatred of Bush is understandable because Bush has more class and integrity in his little finger than he does. I do not want our country to be represented in the world by such a creature.
The establishment’s preferred candidates are Bush, Rubio, Walker, and Kasich. It will be one of those. I was pretty sure it would be Bush, and still think he’ll have enough money to destroy his competition. So far, he has been underwhelming. I’m having a hard time getting too worked up over Trump. I don’t think he’ll be the candidate.
And, I don’t think the left can get any more entrenched in American thought – they are already at 11 on a 10 point scale. The immigration problem will continue regardless of who is elected. The leviathan, unelected, unaccountable bureaucracy will chug along growing new tentacles. Big Brother ain’t going no where and it’s already too late to burn it down. We are New Europe, or most likely El Norte.
While I would prefer to see Cruz, Jindal, or Fiorina as president, I don’t see any of them as being remotely electable on a national scale. I don’t even consider Walker, who will get absolutely eviscerated if he is the nominee as an “uneducated rube”–do you think the average entitled low info with a college degree is going to vote for some guy that didn’t even go to college?
The Democrats have the election process under wraps, with Democrats holding all the top election offices in all the swing states for the past decade. There is once again going to be massive voter fraud committed in these states by their army of college students driving from polling site to polling site, voting with their pre-prepared lists of names.
The only way to overcome the stuffing of the ballot boxes is to have a candidate that appeals to the low infos on some level. That candidate is Trump, but I don’t think he would be able to win an election with the current level of (one-way) voting fraud going on.
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