Trump on de Blasio, circa 2013
I’m just curious.
Calling all Trump supporters. Please read this article about the things Trump said about de Blasio when Bill was running for mayor of New York.
For those who don’t feel like clicking, here:
I think pretty strongly that he’ll end up being a good mayor, maybe a very good mayor and I don’t think he’s going to want to kill the golden goose.
I think he’s a smart guy that knows what’s going on really big league and I think he is not going to want to destroy New York,” Trump said. “I think he is going to want to make New York great.”
So, what do you think? Is it this?
“It’s okay because he has to say that stuff to do business in New York.”
So, he’s a whore for money? Do you care? Is money all he cares about? How do you know what his principles are? This is no isolated incident, either; this is the way he rolls, praising whoever he thinks will gain power, no matter how pernicious or destructive, and he’s been doing it for decades. Can you trust him? Do you actually think his money insulates him from corruption? If so, why did his money cause him to say this? Or do you think he really thought this, and now he’s changed his mind? Can you imagine supporting anyone else on earth who said this sort of thing? Do you support him no matter what because “WALL!” and DESTROY GOP!”? If he’s your battering ram, do you really think you know what he would do once he’s gained the most powerful position in the world?
NOTE: By the way, those of you who say that Trump’s the only one who’s been talking about a wall, see this from 2011:
Ted Cruz was fighting illegal immigration (and his own party) when Donald Trump was not even a candidate. For example, see this (datelined 10/29/2013):
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has shaped the view of Republican leaders on immigration reform, and his sway with grassroots conservatives will make passing comprehensive legislation significantly more difficult.
Cruz scored a victory in the battle for the hearts and minds of his party over the weekend when Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) backed away from the Senate’s overhaul of immigration laws.
GOP leaders, after President Obama’s reelection last year, sounded more open to moving broad legislation on immigration, but their interest in doing so has waned as Cruz’s power has grown.
“There are going to be a lot of Republicans who don’t want to be on the other side of Ted Cruz,” said Rosemary Jenks, director of government relations at NumbersUSA, a group that advocates for reduced immigration flows.
See also this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and there are lots more, too.
[ADDENDUM: After reading some of the comments, it occurs to me that I need to highlight something, which is that those statements of Trump’s were made while de Blasio was running for mayor, not after he was elected. If it had been after the election, at least you could say Trump was accepting it and trying to make the best of it and to ingratiate himself with him because it was a fait accompli. Before the election, it amounts to an endorsement.
The article says:
Trump’s enthusiasm might seem unlikely amid reports that the business and finance sectors of the city worry what a de Blasio tenure might mean for their industries.
So, other business people didn’t seem to feel the need to prostitute themselves at that point and endorse de Blasio. Just that great old truthteller, Donald Trump, who said before the election that de Blasio was “a smart guy that knows what’s going on really big league.”
What politician wouldn’t Donald Trump praise, if it could get him some money and advantage? These sorts of comments from Trump are exactly the sort of thing that in anyone else would draw the wrath of any conservative. But Trump gets a pass on them from a lot of people because he does it for money?
I rely on interviews from long, long ago when he was saying the same exact things about trade. I rely on his books…what man takes the time to write a book that is all lies in order to take advantage of that in the future (by looking at his crystal ball) and knowing what would resonate with America??
He admitted to O’Reilly just the other day that he voted both times for Bush. That he votes based on who he thinks is best for the country, and not party…which doesn’t bother me.
Look at his policy papers, read his books on his political views. It may not be Ted Cruz verbatim, but he does have a lot of conservative views and policies.
I’m not an Iowan or a New Hampshire resident. I can’t vote in those primaries. But I sure am watching them, and all the others that come before my state gets a chance. I keep my mind open. But I am not afraid of Trump.
I beginning to think exposure of Trump as no conservative helps Cruz, the true outsider and a real conservative.
Trump has so much baggage…
And HRC has it mounted all on a private server.
In the final stretch, she can video Trump talking out of both sides of his mouth — forever.
&&&&&
Cruz worries me because I fear he won’t counter-punch HRC — on general principle.
Whereas Trump is proving to be a canny counter-puncher.
Near as I can tell, Trump has sidelined Bill Clinton… entirely.
Which is why Chelsea became her mother’s attack dog.
&&&&&&
Rubio scares me because I can’t believe he would not pull amnesty across the finish line.
In which case, America would be a one-party state in short order.
I live in a one-party state, California. It stinks.
It’s even a one-personality state, Jerry Brown.
If HRC dropped out — figure on Jerry to come running.
blert:
People say that about Rubio and amnesty and its effects.
However, I don’t think that would be the effect, if the border is secured first, really secured.
If that happens, we just basically have the status quo. The people who came illegally would get legal status (they already get benefits anyway), they would not be allowed to vote but their children would (that’s already true), and—and this is most important—future immigration would be controlled.
I really don’t see Trump’s position as all that different except as window-dressing: “we’ll throw them out and then let back in all but the criminals.”
The differences are more rhetorical and stylistic. I’d be content with stopping illegal immigration at this point. The truth is that even Trump is not going to get rid of all those illegal immigrants who are already here. He’s even said as much. I am being realistic about that. His followers are not, IMHO.
You can interpret it as praising people who rise to power, but you can also interpret it as giving people the benefit of doubt until they prove themselves.
How do you work with someone if your first move is to demonize them? It’s not whoring. It’s called statesmanship. You can’t succeed if everyone thinks you’re nasty like Ted Cruz. See what I did there?
A guy who did call Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a liar on the floor of the US Senate won’t counter-punch a criminal conspirator Hillary Clinton? Something about that construction doesn’t make sense.
I see that Trump has some more classy statements about Cruz today. The birther issue wasn’t enough, so now he’s playing up the Goldman Sachs loan and pretending that Cruz tried to hide it.
Trumpkins will undoubtedly think this shows how hard he’ll fight for us!
Suckers.
Matt_SE, 5:02 pm – “Trumpkins will undoubtedly think this shows how hard he’ll fight for us! Suckers.”
The issue, to me, is “who’s ‘us'”?
We who think in terms of free markets and ideology and social consciousness are not Trumpkins’ “us”.
Trumpkins’ “us” is people who don’t think in those terms, but who think in terms of what the h#ll’s happening to *my* country and, by the way, the d#mn Republicans are just letting it happen (and getting rich in the process).
. . . and I needed to add, Cruz is just another one of “the d#mn Republicans” to those in Trumpkins’ “us” category. Trumpkins’ “us” people have precious little patience for dealing with Republican infighting — which is how (I contend) they’d view Cruz’s valiant pushing back on the GOPe.
sdferr:
Saying Cruz won’t counterpunch is pure mindless propaganda bs. Say it often enough, loud enough, and in enough venues, and people who know nothing of Cruz’s history (which is probably most people) will believe it.
Voila! Mission accomplished! Trump’s the only one who knows how to counterpunch! Alpha male!
As a Trump supporter, it really just strikes me as the general sort of comments one would make about anyone, just a general expression of goodwill. Besides, the 2013 mayoral election was 75% to 25% in de Blasio’s favor. And Trump does business in New York City, dealing with not just elected officials, but the bureaucracy, and he also has to keep in mind that many of the people in New York are his customers, too.
Besides that, consider the example of the Koch brothers. Or how the media reacted when Rush Limbaugh said of Obama, “I hope he fails”? Who wants that grief, when the stakes are so small?
I also keep in mind my own personal experiences. A number of years ago, when Bush was President and I expressed my support of him, I tended to get some unpleasant reactions, what with living in New England and working with liberals. Since then, I’ve learned to stick with just vaguely centrist, long-run, pro-American commentary, never volunteering anything otherwise. Who needs the grief? But in the voting booth, and with online forums, it’s a different matter.
I confess neo-neocon that I’ve begun to imagine the day when Hillary Clinton is indicted and the Democrat Party, seeing a main chance, decides like the many Trump supporters nominally from the Republican party, only in the mirror or photo-negative sense, to also overlook Trump’s earlier affiliations with the opposition political party and therefore [Alpha Male!] to nominate Trump to replace the fallen Clinton. The Republicans insist, No! We had him first! But then in a gust of national unity (yuger than George Washington!), both parties nominate the one man, and the world is at peace.
Whether this imagining of mine is comedic, nightmarish or divinely inspired, I leave to the imaginations of others.
boxty:
Sure, give a socialist with the platform to match (income redistribution, anti-charter schools, etc. etc.) the benefit of the doubt by praising him. That’s exactly the sort of thing that in anyone else would draw the wrath of any conservative. Trump gets a pass on it because he does it for money? (Not that he needed more money by 2013, not enough to prostitute himself for).
Either he’s prostituting himself for money, or he has no ability to judge people. One or the other.
What’s more, those statement of his were made while de Blasio was running for mayor, not after he was elected. If it was after the election, at least you could say he was accepting it and trying to make the best of it and ingratiate himself with him. Before the election, it amounts to an endorsement.
The article says:
So, other business people didn’t feel the need to prostitute themselves and endorse de Blasio. Just that great old truthteller, Donald Trump, who says before the election that de Blasio is “a smart guy that knows what’s going on really big league.”
What politician wouldn’t Donald Trump praise, if it could get him some money and advantage?
Yankee:
See my comment right above this one.
Trump’s comments were made BEFORE the election. They amounted to an endorsement. They were not after the fact.
Maybe I’ll add that to the post as an addendum, just to call people’s attention to it.
There is no reasoning with those who choose to ignore trump’s past glowing accolades for pelosi, vile statements about GWB, proud admissions that he is a crony capitalist, statements far from conservative on abortion-guns-imigration, and so on and so forth. They want their own messiah and are hooked on bluster. Nothing will change their minds shy of defeat in the general election or the disaster of the donald in the Oval Office.
Neo, you have become unhinged by Trump. Why, I don’t know…
I’m in Texas. I supported Ted, with time and with substantial money. I am disappointed in his utter lack of effectiveness at neutralizing McConnell, Ryan, et alia. Singing the beautiful song is NOT enough, this is how we end up walking backwards.
As to what DT said about DeBlasio, i read it as an optimistic wishcasting with a side comment that he (DeBlasio) couldn’t possibly be that crazy.
neo-neocon, 6:06 pm — “That’s exactly the sort of thing that in anyone else would draw the wrath of any conservative. Trump gets a pass on it because he does it for money? (Not that he needed more money by 2013, not enough to prostitute himself for). Either he’s prostituting himself for money, or he has no ability to judge people.”
Not for money, but for feel-good. He drinks to a fault sycophantic adulation and the nodding approval of his rich-and-famous milieu-mates. It’s a wonder, I say, how he’s made the decision to forego those and trade them for the adulation and approval of (some of) the hoi polloi, given that he must have known going in how he would be despised by so many others.
I ain’t no Trump-bot no how, but I do think he is genuinely aghast at what’s happening to the country (what lover of our country is not?) and is genuinely offering his services to fix it. I mean, who in his right mind would take on this job?? (I know, I know, Trump’s not in his right mind. Touche.)
Nica en Houston:
I think the word “unhinged” is both hyperbolic and incorrect, because my logic should be quite clear.
Read the addendum to the post.
You may not agree. But I believe that those who defend this sort of thing in Trump would roundly condemn it in anyone else (except perhaps their own brother, and maybe not even that).
All is forgiven because it’s Trump. Show me another businessman or businesswoman in NY who purports to adhere to any sort of conservatism or to be on the right who felt the need to praise de Blasio in such a manner before he was even elected. I don’t think there were many, or even any, and somehow they manage to do business there.
parker:
I doubt that even if Trump becomes president and is a disaster it would change their minds. It hasn’t changed the minds of many of the most devoted of Obama supporters.
The Trump supporters would blame any of Trump’s failures on the GOP elites stabbing him in the back.
You heard it here first.
> “It’s okay because he has to say that stuff to do business in New York.”
Nah, he just shoots his mouth off. AFAICT, Trump doesn’t know shit about practically anything. And, he was (is?) a Democrat, so he has always said good things about Democrats and their ideas and actions. Or maybe he is just a cheerleader and doesn’t give a crap about the actuality.
M J R:
Okay, adulation is part of what Trump wants. As a narcissist, that’s important, too.
After Obama won re-election in 2012, and the long tenure of first Giuliani and then Bloomberg, a smart person would believe de Blasio was due for a victory in 2013.
I’m going to vote for Trump in the primary (not that it matters, being from a small state with this taking place in March). But I would also be happy if Cruz won the nomination, and I can find good aspects in Rubio, even with the immigration bill from 2013.
And no matter who the Republican nominee is, I will vote for that person in November of this year, even if it means climbing Mount Katahdin, lassoing a moose, and chasing a black bear out of the blueberry fields.
neo-neocon Says:
“The people who came illegally would get legal status (they already get benefits anyway), they would not be allowed to vote but their children would (that’s already true), and–and this is most important–future immigration would be controlled.”
What on earth gives you faith that a Pres Rubio would secure the border any more than Bush or Obama did? The freakin’ money was appropriated what – 10 years ago?
And does Rubio say that once he gives them legal status, they can’t ever vote? Does he say “legal status only but no citizenship”?
You must know how leftists work by now. Give them an inch, they jam the door open with a brick, and then start using crowbars and axes to break the damn door down.
The second Rubio signs the bill, any bill, Schumer, Pelosi, Reid and the MSM starts screaming about “second class citizens”, “slavery”, “Jim Crow”, “separate but equal”, La Raza shuts down the economy with boycotts and protests backed by #BlackLivesMatter, “Occupy the Multiverse” and the Communist Party until they get the vote for all of them now.
And Rubio caves.
geokstr:
I don’t trust Trump to do any of those things, either.
It’s not that I trust Rubio. It’s that the two of them don’t say things that are all that different. Rubio has explained his stances back then, and says he’s changed. Who knows? At least, he’s otherwise been reliably conservative. I can’t say the same for Trump, mister “I’ll deport them all and let them back in again.”
By the way, I wrote a post a while back (don’t have time to find it right now, but you could try) that listed some of the reasons the wall hasn’t been built. Environmental lawsuits have been part of it, for example. What would Trump do about that? No one’s even mentioned it; I’m curious. It’s not just lack of interest that is the reason the wall hasn’t been built.
Yankee:
Ah, so it’s okay because Trump thought de Blasio would win and wanted to curry favor and kiss the butt of the probable winner.
I see. That makes it all good.
neo,
Wasn’t it Churchill who made the comment to a woman about sex, “we know what you are, but now we are debating the price.”? I wonder what Winston would have thought of Trump.
The sheeple are in charge. Those who play to the sheeple are more likely to win. Pure and simple.
The trouble with this site is that there are so few differences among us. A special micro-world. Kind of like Pauline Kael in NYC, Dec. 1972: “I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they [sic] are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken.”
When I try to talk to sheeple about things that matter, require a little cerebration, I find it futile. They always respond, “Yes, but…” and go on to an irrelevancy.
Neo,
I have read you regularly since you started. You and a bushel basket full of people I love, respect and read regularly have gone off the deep end over DT. And I withdraw unhinged and substitute with fogged by unreasonable emotion. Now would be a good time to dig up anything you have by Albert Ellis or Maxie Maultsby, it would help understand what DT does, as opposed to what your mental dialogue tells you he’s doing… It’s about winning, and you don’t know what DT believes based on what he says. Actions. Behavior. That is ALL that counts.
I moved for about 20 years from academia and the world of words to the world of business and action. I was on point and at the center of some intense commercial lease negotiations with powerful and expensive lawyers involved for both sides – and across from developers trying to size us up and eat us up, sweating bullets one at a time, sideways. Our lawyers always said to us “…I know what they are trying to do, just work on staying calm, stay detached, and be ready to answer rationally when I need your input.”
So I think the question is whether there is anything in the corpus of DT’s actions, his behavior, that should give you pause… That would make you think that he is not an honorable and upright man of his word. I submit that his insistence that a deal is a deal, if you agreed to it even if it is horrible, like the Iran deal.
I believe (could be mistaken, of course) that a man that sticks by his deal, his word, is a man that can be trusted. Please compare to the Father of Lies currently occupying our seat of power, Shaitan himself.
Pretty words won’t save us, the beautiful song never worked, and we are faced with a decision to trust or not to trust this man. So I focus on actions, behavior.
http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/01/20/bob-dole-warns-of-cataclysmic-losses-with-ted-cruz-and-says-donald-trump-would-do-better/
Dole is in Trump’s corner…
Loathes Ted Cruz.
I don’t think Dole knows what Conservative principles are.
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/137375194651/the-biggest-trump-story-that-you-missed-master#_=_
“Now that Trump has an acceptable motive — a story you will see emerge in the media — the election is essentially over.
Trump will win Iowa and run the table.”
Scott Adams
“So I focus on actions, behavoir.”
Based on the donald’s past behavior and your support for him you have waded into water several feet over your head. Personally, I find it amazing/frustrating how far off the deep end people who profess to be conservative are willing to sink below the water line to support the carnival barker named trump. It is obviously a very contagious disease. Where is the CDC when we really need them?
I spend about 30 hours a week knocking on doors for Cruz to prove Dilbert wrong. Carson is off the radar in Iowa, his 6% is not going to flock to the donald’s banner. Iowa is a Cruz trump battle. I am anticipating Iowa will be the first firewall. But if the trump clowns get their wish and the bombastic liberal gains the gop nomination, I will vote for a third party.
You trumpsters want to burn it all down, so be it. Count me as your enemy. Go pop some viagra with Dole if you are so frantic to get it up.
Parker, I am afraid trump is what you get in the media-celebrity circus that American politics has become. Billy Boy showed the way-saxophone Bill, the first black President, and no one vomited.
The Peace Dividend and Hillarycare, and no we dont want Osama, thanks very much
Run this CIRCUS forward-swish! past Gore, and then swish past McCain and swish swish past Mitt and whattaya got after Obama? TRUMP.
Cruz is a hero. Fiorino is a hero. Carson is a hero. They will likely not matter.
What we need from Trump is a list of his enemies, foreign and domestic. And friends. Not strategies, just IDs, and we can work with that.
Nica en Houston:
In a way, I wish my reaction to Trump were just based on some sort of emotional dislike of the man, rather than a dislike and distrust based on his words and actions. Then it might be easier to hold my nose and vote for him.
Up until this summer I hadn’t spent but a moment thinking about him. I’ve never watched his shows. Just don’t care. Never followed his life. I once entered a Trump building in NY, the one with a sort of orange marble waterfall, back when it was new, and listened to the sound of the waterfall. That’s about it for the previous interface between me and Trump. Oh, and I wrote a post in 2011 which mentions him rather briefly, which was actually rather positive in terms of seeing him as a gadfly for Obama (see this). So I had no pre-existing bone to pick. It’s only after his candidacy began that I started researching him and taking an interest in his political views and in his life in any larger way, and I find much of what I’ve found and what I’ve observed to be very negative.
You ask, “So I think the question is whether there is anything in the corpus of DT’s actions, his behavior, that should give you pause… That would make you think that he is not an honorable and upright man of his word.”
Well, to start with, there’s the obvious in his personal life: cheating on his wife/wives. Not at present, but in the past (I know nothing about what he does at present, but I’m assuming he’s faithful). That in and of itself would not be nearly enough, but it’s certainly a case of breaking a vow taken before man and before God.
Then we have his words, and not just his childish, repetitive insults, but things like calling Bush “evil” and that he should have been impeached. I have links to all of this in other posts, in addition to lies and/or inconsistencies in many things he’s said during this campaign; I’m not going to bother in this comment.
But you’d like actions and behavior. Interestingly enough, Trump has never held public office, so (unlike the other politicians), he’s never had to deal with the usual jockeying and compromises that go on in connection with that. So we have to look to his private life (we’ve already done that, with his infidelities) or his business life.
See this, this, this, this (which is a summary of part of a lengthy NY Times article, a part I found disturbing when I read the original article in the Times), this, this, and this on crony capitalism and ethanol.
.
(And I’ll include this for allegations, although I have no idea if they’re true and don’t have time to research it in depth.)
And then there are just bald-faced lies, quite a few of them. Here’s one.
No Frog, its what we get when 50.01% vote for the destruction of the republic we were bequeathed.
Neo,
Achivements of my senator, T. Cruz, who I supported vigorously with my time and money = 0 (zero), zip, nada, rien pas! Even if we use the inappropriately low bar of vaguely worded legislation that is then handed over to the executive to create even more gashes through the constitution.
Pretty boy Rubio independently, on his own, and underneath the radar of the SJWs that, thankfully, are thoroughly innumerate, inserted a fatal poison pill into a bill that will kill Obamacare. That alone puts him into the pantheon of real heroes who defeat the plagues with cleverness.
And where was my pissant senator Cuz? Singing the beautiful song, and doing exactly nothing other than creating sworn enemies for us. That.just.doesn’t.work for me, for us. I regret supporting him because he is massively ineffective. It is enormously satisfying to hear the beautiful constitutional republic words come out of his mouth, and then you see the seething hatred and anger directed at him. I actually overheard a person I know well, a staunch personal responsibility conservative, blurt out “..f&#@ing litigator” and turn her back on the screen. If I could, I would say to TC “dude, pay attention” The pissant maroon is still in the debating society, in court, winning arguments that are nothing other than atmospheric vibrations that fade to silence.
Here is a link to a bloggingheads discussion over at Althouse’s blog http://althouse.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-coming-cascade-of-smart-educated.html
Nica en Houston’s take matches my observation on Trump’s appeal at Neo’s, here. Excerpt:
I was at a funeral the other day. A (half) cousin I see once every 4 years started talking politics; complaining that her brother was constantly criticizing Obama’s performance.
“I said to him, ‘Gee, give the guy a chance, why don’t you?’ ”
She shook her head as if the implication was obvious.
Seven years? Has that not been a “chance”?
They are not thinking. Possibly, they cannot think. That, or the chance they are privately hoping and thinking of, is for your unconditional cooperation in bringing about a state of affairs which would complete our transition from a republic to a Zimbabwe West version of Garry Wills’ ‘love means bondage’ life for a population ruled by “experts” and “big men”.
Somehow, somehow, they imagine that those with whom they will not keep the original faith, are bound to keep their preferred substitute faith with them. They apparently imagine that some kind of magical invisible identity-umbilical links us all together as a “we”, despite it all: despite the subversion of the original project, the rigging of outcomes, and the fact that we are obviously at moral cross purposes, and value fundamentally antithetical life ways.
Despite all my repetitive thinking and commentary on just this point, I still cannot figure out if they are just incredibly shallow, naive, and simply biologically and intellectually unfitted for self-government and a scheme of voluntary association; or, if they are some demoniacally cynical and manipulative appetite entities, just putting up a show of fellow humanity; erecting a gingerbread house facade, in order to lure in the next human meal.
I think the great negotiator, didn’t read de Blasio very well.
Re the last, Trump and de Blasio … that quote makes Trump look pretty naive, doesn’t it. As in running the line through his head that: ‘ He’s like me basically. He pretty much wants the same things. At heart, or when push comes to shove, he won’t go too far, won’t push things to an extreme. It’s all about the deal’
Well, Donald, no it isn’t. It’s about how they feel about themselves, which is shaped by the affirmations of others; and what they have to do in order to get back at a world that has “failed” to take note of and affirm of their urges and wants and supposedly inherent associative value.
And structuring a workable deal, or even preserving the context in which a deal can be reached, is nothing to them compared to that.
Nica en Houston:
I didn’t think Cruz was sent to the Senate to get bills passed, which he couldn’t do unless he had support from other senators. There simply weren’t enough of the same frame of mind. I thought he was sent there to make waves, which he did. If he had compromised, he would have been excoriated as a sellout, like so many are excoriating and rejecting Rubio for his Gang of 8 participation.
With many conservatives, there’s no way to win, because they want miracle workers who will somehow oppose everything, stand with the minority, and yet get things done.
I happen to support both Cruz AND Rubio, by the way, for rather different reasons. I am in many ways undecided between the two. But I don’t expect miracles from either—or, actually, from any of the candidates.
Looking for separate category for Trump? Walter Russel Mead did it for you: Andrew Jackson returned, and he is mad as hell. Mark Steyn agrees: Trump is not conservative, but this is irrelevant. Middle America is not interested in ideology, it wants somebody to restore American greatness and trash Washington.
Sergey:
Actually, I meant a “category” in the “categories” list on my right sidebar. It would be easy to name it; the name would be “Trump.”
That Cruz is anti-ethanol when it would work to his political advantage to be pro-ethanol boggles my mind. It says everything you need to know about the man. (I may have to give up politician jokes….)
‘Middle America is not interested in ideology, it wants somebody to restore American greatness and trash Washington.’
Ideology, the right ideology, (not populism or progressivism) is what made America great.
‘I happen to support both Cruz AND Rubio, by the way, for rather different reasons.’
I mostly agree. Cruz is preferable, Rubio is acceptable. No one else is (at least no one else who has a chance).
Re the last, Trump and de Blasio … that quote makes Trump look pretty naive, doesn’t it.
It makes Trump into a man of the deal, like the Mafia are. Bound by some rules, but not the ones most people know about.
Also it shows Trump is in De Blasio’s pocket, or perhaps it is the other way around.
Walter Russel Mead
Mead also voted for Hussein Obola, I would like to remind people who don’t pay attention to domestic American politics.
And Mead’s Jacksonians are the same type of people who supported the Democrat slave barons that led to 1860’s Civil War I.
A Jacksonian is not an Andrew Jackson, they don’t have his virtues. They are a lesser kind, the second generation who wanted to emulate Jackson the way some people emulate Mohammed or Jesus.
Democrats like Mead, tend to need Messiahs, and if Jackson happens to be too dead for that, well, that’s why they get a Hussein.
I believe (could be mistaken, of course) that a man that sticks by his deal, his word, is a man that can be trusted.
Both Islam and their slave trading politicians in Europe, did exactly what they said they would.
Trust doesn’t mean they are an ally. It’s a mistake people at the highest strategic levels of Total War, don’t make more than once.
Neo:
“With many conservatives, there’s no way to win, because they want miracle workers who will somehow oppose everything, stand with the minority, and yet get things done.”
There are ways to ‘make the trains run on time’ besides traditionally American ways.
Sergey:
“Looking for separate category for Trump? Walter Russel Mead did it for you: Andrew Jackson returned, and he is mad as hell.”
As Ymarsakar pointed out, Mead’s Jacksonian type is not the same thing as “Andrew Jackson returned”.
At the same time, Trump supporters as well as some Cruz supporters are retrofitting a false narrative based on an over-simplified reductive either/or Jacksonian or Wilsonian frame and a shared assignment of blame for Obama’s foreign policy failures to Bush despite that Obama fundamentally deviated from Bush’s course.
In fact, Bush’s foreign policy was both Jacksonian and Wilsonian consistent with America’s hegemonic leadership of the free world since WW2.