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I wonder if Trump is feeling insecure about SC, because he’s threatening to sue Cruz AND perhaps to go 3rd party — 51 Comments

1. Trump is the metastasized tumor on the 2016 election. What good is cancer?

2. Trump’s window for a third party run is rapidly closing. Likewise Bloomberg’s.

   OT: This story: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/donald-trump-2016-authoritarian-213533
   The common factor that Trump supporters have is authoritarianism.

3. I saw a blurb to the effect that a third party run is now OUT for Trump because it is too late and/or he is already registered as a Republican in many states.

   That makes perfect sense to me. Lose the GOP nomination and then run third party? No way. I think they are called “sore loser” statutes.

   Trump is insane. Even if he doesn’t get the nomination he could end up giving the White House to the Dems.

   Very, very disappointed in GWB today. He should have slapped Trump around on the “Bush lied, people died” meme. Dick Cheney had some nice push back on Fox, but not enough.

   To watch Chris Hayes and Rachael Maddow lick their chops at this disaster is making me sick.

   Chelsea Clinton in Omaha this Wednesday.

4. After SC, Carson is gone and maybe Bush too. We may wind up with a three person race all the way to the convention. I don’t see Trump above 35%.

5. Trump is on a mission to create as much chaos and division in the GOP as possible. He will, IMHO, drop out at some point and take his cult followers with him, splitting the vote.

   The best way to minimize the damage is to make him look weak and cowardly. E.g., Cruz ought to, very publicly, perhaps in a debate, tell Trump re: his threats to sue

   “Donald, go ahead and sue me. It’s time you put up or shut up.”

   At every opportunity Cruz needs to spank Trump for his manners and challenge him in ways Trump can’t answer.

6. David French has a good article up at National Review making the argument that Trump is a Democrat. Hopefully the voters in SC will choose wisely on Saturday.

7. > He should have slapped Trump around

   Bush was always a bit weak in the SOB department. He also needed to fire more people when he was president. Mind, Trump isn’t an SOB, he’s an A**hole. Cheney on the other hand…

8. Cruz needs to harp on the (now ‘ancient’) reports at WPO and Business Insider that the Donald talked with Slick Willy before he entered the gop race. Can PatD spell T_o_ja_ _or__?

9. @parker

   You mispelled T_o_ja_ _or__ 😉

10. Glad to see others are starting to look at my original contention the djt was a spoiler from the get go. Yes, neo internal polling shows Cruz may trump Trump in SC. A cornered megalomaniac is as cunning as a cornered rat… all teeth. Bluster, bovine flatulence, and bombastic blather defines el trumpo.

11. Chuck,

    Thanks and to make it easy for PatD and the trumptopians; Trojan Horse.

12. I just visited Conservative Tree House and those folks appear to be just as committed to Trump as ever. It is amazing. I do worry about their poll which shows Cruz losing ground. If their poll is correct, it appears that Trump is hurting Cruz with his name calling and lies and thus helping himself. In other words Boorishness pays in this case.

13. @Dennis

    Maybe people is watching Trump as the victim and Cruz as an establishment representative.

    Let’s see that here there’s some accusations of Trump playing dirty for threatening Cruz with a lawsuit, while last republican debate had the public fully rigged (which is far dirtier) and that seems to be OK.

    Trump is accused of name telling, which is true, but he’s far more often systematically insulted by both Democrats and Republicans, and that seems to be OK.

    Some people don’t like the feeling of unfairness. Trump has been designated as the official “bad guy” that allows to do or say anything to knock him down while telling he’s the dirty one. And it’s likely that many people don’t like that.

14. “The Other Chuck” is certainly wrong with his “there is only one answer” explanation for why Trump would bring up the “they lied about WMD” meme. One such explanation is that Trump wants to do better against HC in the polls and he thinks that by attacking GWB he can re-brand himself with independents, Democrats and even Republicans who believe “they lied” about WMD. Lets not forget that by the end of GWB’s administration, most Americans believed what Trump said.

15. For a business analogy, the Republican Party is like a company with some good assets, that is really under-performing, has bad management, and needs a good re-branding. And while the long nomination process is good for bringing out the real character of a candidate, the success Trump has had so far indicates something is wrong with the party.

    Trump’s support shows that there are a lot of people out there who like that nationalist, populist, anti-immigration message. Previously, those people were just ignored. And I find it odd that other major political commentators criticize Trump while failing to understand that the message they push (conservative theory, tax cuts, foreign interventions with no gains) does not appeal to a large sector of potential voters.

    If you want to beat Trump, and end up with a better nominee, then it’s pretty simple. Co-opt his issues on populism, immigration, etc. Praise Trump for bringing up those issues. Persuade his supporters that you care about the same things, and you’re listening to them.

    Of the current six candidates, if just two would drop out, then we might get better results. Ben Carson should go, with no previous political experience, and not doing that well anyway. And Marco Rubio should also bow out of the process.

    That may be a surprise to some, but just consider: Rubio has a huge handicap with the Gang of 8 pro-immigration bill in 2013, which just won’t be acceptable for too many voters. Plus, he is really, really young, and should just wait four to eight years, then try again, if he wants. (In before he is 44 to Cruz’s 45.) If he leaves now, he could have more success later.

    That leaves us with Jeb Bush, Cruz, Kasich, and Trump. Among those, the voters should be able to come up with the best choice.

16. It is truly amazing to me that there are so many people in the Republican Party who can’t see through this boorish nitwit and just to be clear, I am talking about Trump. He has always been and always will be a Trojan Horse, Manchurian Candidate, Clinton Plant etc. His sole purpose has been to destroy the Republican Party. Much like in the original Ghostbusters, it seems that the Republican Party has chosen the form of it’s destructor.

17. Yann Says at 3:43 am

    “Maybe people is watching Trump as the victim and Cruz as an establishment representative.”

    Amazing.

    “last republican debate had the public fully rigged (which is far dirtier) and that seems to be OK.”

    Are you talking about the boos? If so I agree, that was bad. Did Cruz have anything to do with that? If he was responsible, why did they also boo Cruz? Incidentally, the primary responsibility for maintaining decorum during a debate rests with the CBS moderators. If CBS is in the tank for the establishment Republicans that is new to me.

    If you want to see a party which really is rigged against the challenger, check out the Democrats who have enough super delegates to counteract the people’s vote. Compared to that, a few boos during a debate don’t rate.

18. Boos at a debate?! Unheard of. Really Trumptopians, Trumpetts, what ever you are “self-identifying” as these days, if Trump can’t handle a few boos and hard-hitting ads, what the hell kind of a President will he make? Sometimes, I feel like I am in Bizzaro World these days. He is running for the most important, toughest job in the World and he can’t handle criticism or direct questions or defend his position coherently without ad hominem attacks? Really? That’s where we are at in this nation, where we are going to have a choice between a self aggrandizing thin-skinned megalomaniac and a woman who should be wearing an orange jumpsuit in Super Max? God help us all.

19. he is just revealing the game that is imposed on all those who seek to be elected and who dont protest or let us know about this stuff…

    but its better we are communist…

    Families to Be “Equal Partners” to Big Government Regarding Parenting

    The federal government is seeking to create a new bureaucracy that would intervene in family life and could even see state-appointed monitors conduct routine home visits to assess a child’s well-being.

    The U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has published a draft document which outlines a plan that will treat families as “equal partners” in the raising of children, opening the door for government intrusion at all levels.

    The paper describes how government employees will intervene to provide, “monitoring goals for the children at home and the classroom,” and that if parents are failing to meet the standards set, “evidence-based parenting interventions” will be made to, “ensure that children’s social-emotional and behavioral needs are met.”

    The document reveals how the state will help oversee, “constant monitoring and communication regarding children’s social-emotional and behavioral health.”

    you let me know if there is anyone even pretending to do a thing about such soviet stuff? then keep grousing that the perosn your looking at is too crass to be a good communist and do the job communists want and make this fully totalitarian..

    otherwise… whats your point?
    what other entity are you going to pin hopes on who doesnt even pretend to fight against such stolen freedoms?

20. Dennis Says:
    “…the primary responsibility for maintaining decorum during a debate rests with the CBS moderators. If CBS is in the tank for the establishment Republicans that is new to me.

    I agree with almost all of your comment, but if you’re in the enviable position of having all your enemies arrayed right in front of you, in competition with each other, and you have a chance to help in eliminating the ones you hate and fear most, what would you do? Be fair and even-handed?

21. Geokstr, I agree. The fact that John Dickerson (CBS) was a “moderator” for this debate is insane! He wrote an OpEd to Obama in which he called for the destruction of the Republican Party. Yea, that sounds like the guy you want moderating a Republican Debate. He surely won’t let any of his hatred for Republicans seep into his questions/moderation (see Ted Cruz exchange on Supreme Court). Rence Priebus and his entire staff should be fired immediately for that. Period.

22. Lawsuit as retaliation for campaign ads. And say, if Trump is so great at making deals, why is his deal with the RNC falling through?

    because the RNC is notorious for bad deals, cheating deals, and reneging on things if they dont like what is going on… it was fine and looked great to do a deal when they were machinging to get rid of him, working with the opposition to do so, and all that… but now that he may win, well, now they have to cheat the deal and you have to blame the person running.

    of course the statists win and have no reason to care about what you think since you hold them to nothing…

    which is why they sold you out… why stand up and fight for people who will let you rob them? who will stand up for you and not care to dig deep and see how you cheat them? why not cheat them? there is nothing to be gained from them without cheating them…

    trump is exposing the game..
    and its uglier than trump ever was
    and you and i dont know squat about whats in his mind
    other than the idea that if he really wants to go down in history as a great man, he has to do a good job regardless of party affiliation or such.

    but really.. he is fighting all sides including his own to stay in a race he is polling high on… maybe his side would rather a RINO Win and the largess of your money get taken as Trump threatens a good scame on the polity

23. Jay Kaplan:
    “he can re-brand himself with independents, Democrats and even Republicans who believe “they lied” about WMD.”

    Answer to “Did Bush lie his way to war with Iraq?”.

24. I have said on numerous occasions that my preference for the oval office would not be Donald Trump. As with Thomas Sowell, I would prefer a Cruz presidency. Likewise, if Trump is the choice I am given, I would vote for him on the hope that his coattails would carry the country along with him. Trump might turn on me and treat me, in whole or in part, as the enemy, but Hillary has already put me on notice that I AM the enemy.

    With that in mind, I offer the following from a June 25, 1999 editorial Trump wrote for the Miami Herald (H/T Don Surber @ donsurber.blogspot.com)l:

    Castro urgently wants the United States to lift the embargo because he is desperate for hard currency to keep his faltering communist economy afloat. Now, without the generous subsidies from the Soviet Union — between $5-7 billion dollars a year — Cuba’s economy is reeling.

    Of course, he would love Donald Trump to come to Havana and build casino hotels. Why? Not to raise the standard of living for the people of Cuba. Quite the contrary. Almost every dollar would go to prop up his police-state. Why? Because foreign investors cannot legally do business with private Cuban citizens. They can go into business only with the Castro government. It is highly illegal in Cuba for anyone except for the regime to employ a Cuban citizen.

    Foreign investors are not allowed to hire or pay Cuban workers. They must pay the government directly for the workers. Castro then pays the workers in worthless Cuban money and keeps the rest. Under these circumstances, my investment cannot help average Cubans — it can only replace the Soviet subsidy Castro no longer receives.

    If I opened a casino/hotel in Havana, I would be required to pay Castro about $10,000 per year for each Cuban worker. But the workers would not benefit. Castro would pay them the equivalent of $10 a month. The rest he uses to pay for the brutal and violent system that keeps him in power — and deprives the Cuban people of basic human rights. In other words, my investment in Cuba would directly subsidize the oppression of the Cuban people.

    Yes, the embargo is costly. If I formed a joint venture with European partners, I would make millions of dollars. But I’d rather lose those millions than lose my self-respect. I would rather take a financial hit than become a financial backer of one of the world’s most-brutal dictators, a man who was once willing to aid in the destruction of my country. To me the embargo question is no question at all. Of course, we should keep the embargo in place. We should keep it until Castro is gone.</blockquote cite =""

25. Neo said:
    What makes Trump a Republican eligible to run in the primary? Because he says he is? I don’t think the situation has ever come up before, so I don’t think party leaders ever envisioned it.
    I don’t know history well enough to know if that’s ever happened in a race for POTUS, but it happens all the time at all other levels.

    It’s like being a “journalist”, you are one just by saying “I are a journalist.”

    Bloomberg switched from being a Democrat because their field was too crowded to be assured of winning the nomination for mayor. Susan Collins has a ConservativeRevew.com rating lower than the Marxist Bernie Sanders, with four more calling themselves Republicans just a few points ahead of The Bern: Capito, Murkowski, Kirk, Alexander. Specter and Jeffords, both very liberal, changed parties, one to save his own political ass and provide the 60th vote for ObamaCare, the other to prevent his former party from gaining a majority.

    There are lots more. Trump is just the latest example. What exactly can be done about it, especially when a chunk of your own base goes along for the ride?

26. ArtfldgrsGhost, I will agree with you on one thing and one thing only… Trump is exposing the game that the establishment plays with a part of their own constituents i.e. Conservatives and have for several election cycles now. But I will vehemently disagree with you that Trump is the victim here or that Trump is the savior. He is the embodiment of narcissism. He gives Obama a run for his money on who can be the most self-serving and thin-skinned. He isn’t anti-establishment, he is anti-Republican, plain and simple. You want to talk about someone who is fighting the fight with the establishment and has the bone fides to back it up then you should be cheering Ted Cruz, not Donald Trump.

27. @Jal Kaplan:
    Lets not forget that by the end of GWB’s administration, most Americans believed what Trump said.

    They did? That’s news to me. The Democrats who had originally supported the war did their best to plant that idea as an excuse to cut and run, which is exactly what they did after electing Obama.

28. ‘if he loses the nomination he runs third party, splits the Republican vote and the Democrats win.’

    What if Trump splits the Democrat vote? His core constituency is after all the Reagan Democrats.

29. As a follow up to my 10:05 post above, I note the following from an essay by Daniel J. Flynn on the tactics of Simon Newman, president of Mount St. Mary’s College in Maryland. Flynn is not discussing Trump at all, but makes a very pertinent observation on a potential Trump presidency (H/T Ed Driscoll at Instapundit).

    The Quote (emphasis mine):

    Capitalists err in running businesses like charities, donating shareholder money to causes and campaigns. A related mistake sees capitalists running charities like businesses. Tenure, shared governance, freedom of speech, and other features of campus life make it impossible for a college president to govern, at least for long, as a dictatorial CEO.

    . . . a college president or a POTUS. I think that this is true of government as well.

    The link:

    http://spectator.org/articles/65462/glock-and-man-mount-st-mary%E2%80%99s

30. You should’ve also included Rubio’s accusations about Cruz lying. It’s not just Trump who is getting lied about…Rubio also has been a victim of this.

    As for the threat to the RNC, guess you can’t see a bluff. I know this is a bluff. He is telling the RNC that they need to cut the crap (giving debate tickets to lobbyists and donors) and be fair…the RNC DID break its deal. The RNC knows that if Trump went 3rd party, the Republican would have no chance. Trump knows the RNC will back down.

    He is far ahead in the polls. Trump has no reason to quit the race and go 3rd party, folks.

31. Oh, and by the way, let’s go back in time to 2012. Romney was not the favored candidate. He won, finally, with only 51% of the overall primary vote. Would you say that the rest of the Republican party (49%) were unable to get behind Romney?

    I mean, really, to say this early in the race that if x, y or z person wins, they aren’t going to get majority support from the Republican voters is just a bit much. I could say the same thing about Cruz or Rubio winning the nomination. Why would the Trump voters support Cruz or Rubio? Too early to say what the final support will be for Trump if he wins (will he ever get over 50%? we don’t know yet). But in the end, a majority of Republicans will coalesce behind the winner.

32. There is wise counsel for many of Trump’s supporters contained in these words from the wise Thomas Sowell:
    “Their anger may be justified, but anger is not a sufficient reason for choosing a candidate in a desperate time for the future of this nation. And there is such a thing as a point of no return.

    Voters need to consider what elections are for. Elections are not held to allow voters to vent their emotions. They are held to choose who shall hold in their hands the fate of hundreds of millions of Americans today and of generations yet unborn.”

    There is more. This excerpt is from http://www.urgentagenda.com, which also contains a link to the compete article.

33. ArtfldgrsGhost’s ghost raises a valid point. The Trump Phenomenon is as much a symptom of the pathological failings of the RNC as it is anything. I can totally see the appeal of his candidacy in those terms, although I think he’s a lousy candidate otherwise (Cruz is my guy).

    If the RNC were interested in conservative principles, it would not have been possible for Trump to gain such a following among disaffected Republicans who feel continually betrayed by the Party and its Establishment. They simply don’t want to go that route… you know the route that won them two landslide elections back in the 80s… who needs that?

    When Trump criticizes the fact that no one in Congress likes Cruz… he’s missing the point. I don’t like (almost) everyone in Congress, so that’s a major plus for me. We voters gave the GOP sizable victories in 2010 and 2014 and what do we have to show for it? We are not sticking with the GOP because of any loyalty. They don’t deserve it. We are sticking with them because they are the only thing slowing down (however feebly) the utter dismantling of the country.

    Only Trump, or someone like him can openly run as a Republican under the platform that the Republican Party is awful. Trump owes a lot of his success to the rise of the LIVs, but also because a lot of people believe they have nowhere else to go, and with good reason.

34. Interesting new poll data from Public Policy Polling. Looks like Cruz is low in likeability in SC along with Jeb:

    “One surprising finding from the poll is that Ted Cruz has the worst net favorability rating of the candidates, with 42% of voters seeing him positively to 48% who have a negative opinion of him. He and Jeb Bush (41/43) are the only candidates under water.”

    Can read all the numbers here: http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2016/02/trump-clinton-still-have-big-sc-leads.html

35. I wonder how many Trump supporters realize that Trump wants to grow the government? That’s going to work out well.
    This reminds me of 2008 when a lot of people used their vote to punish GWB by voting for Obama. You can’t hurt a man already on the way out and the prize they got was a man unfit for the office. I’d like to punish the Republican party too, but Trump is not the answer. Oh, he’ll get a lot done alright. Working with Dems and moderate Repubs. I guess our side wants to prove we can be as stupid as the other side.

36. K-E: PPP is a liberal Democrat firm. They tend to only produce accurate polling after they have helped set a narrative.

37. Oldflyer: You are right, and of course, Thomas Sowell knows what he’s talking about. However, I can believe that a lot of people feel that there is simply no other choice. They feel the GOP will absolutely not listen to them, and they have a point. I agree that it’s a mistake to use your vote to vent, which is why I held my nose and voted for McCain in 2008 (with Romney, I wasn’t holding my nose even though he wasn’t my first choice).

    People have reached the point where the “system” (i.e., the Duopoly of the two parties) has failed them, and it shows no signs of getting better. Thus when someone like Trump comes around, they are going to flock to him. It’s not really that much different than what happened to Obama. I think this is likely the future of Presidential elections in general.

    The public’s knowledge is so shallow and their attention span is so abbreviated that no one but a reality TV star like Trump or the equally shallow Clinton and Sanders, are likely to get attention any more. The Democrats seem to have already reached this point since aside from some windmill tilting by O’Malley, they didn’t even offer a candidate with any gravitas or meaningful experience.

38. Conceptjunkie:

    You know, I’ve watched this “the system has failed me” business for many many years. I think much of it is unjustified, although some of it is justified. Who ever thought a political system, and politicians, would do exactly what you want? And no, they didn’t do nothing that people wanted. I’ve seen, over and over, ignoring of the good work politicians have done for them and focus and the bad and/or the betrayals and disappointments. A lot of the reaction has been petulant, in my opinion, as well as completely unrealistic.

    I have argued over and over with people who say Congress could and should have done things that were impossible, or completely unreasonable under the circumstances. Now those people are going for a candidate with no track record in politics whose opinions change continually and are largely counter to everything those people say they believe—just because he makes one or two vague and unrealistic promises they like. It’s a destructive response, but destruction is their motivation at this point in their rage.

39. I don’t get WHERE this meme of Donald pulling Democrats has any footing.

    For Trump to pull those votes — he would HAVE to leave the GOP behind.

    Even Webb could not get traction inside TODAY’S Democrat machine.

    &&&&&&&&

    It’s plain to ME that HRC or Sanders — would LOVE to face off against Trump.

    Sanders wouldn’t even have to rewrite his stump speech.

    I can’t imagine Trump going third party at this late date — with the wind at his back.

    %%%%%

    Near as I can tell the ONE unifying theme of Trumps antics is to co-opt the media and to suck all of the media oxygen out of the news cycle.

    Hence, his loose cannonade.

    He reminds me of the Mexican bandit-general in “The Wild Bunch” who was unschooled in the use of a tripod.

40. You know, I’ve watched this “the system has failed me” business for many many years. I think much of it is unjustified, . . . [Neo]

    I don’t disagree. I do, however, I offer that the final word on “the system” probably belongs to Milton Friedman who, in 1975 said:

    I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people. The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. Unless it is politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing, the right people will not do the right thing either, or if they try, they will shortly be out of office.

    Restated in those terms, the question is not “Is Trump a good person?”, nor even “Is he the best man for the job?”, but “Can it be made politically profitable for Trump, if elected, do the right thing?”

    I submit that this changes the fundamental course of the debate no matter who the Republican nominee is.

41. blert:

    The meme of Trump pulling Democrats has been spread by a combination of the MSM and Trump supporters. The MSM, etc., want GOP voters to think Trump can win. Trump supporters likewise. There is no foundation for it; I’ve looked, and I’ve written about it. But you see it repeated everywhere as though it’s some revealed truth.

    In other words, it’s propaganda that serves the needs of both sides. The left wants to run against Trump, and Trump supporters want voters on the right to think Trump’s the best bet to win the general.

42. geokstr:

    Your examples don’t fit the situation I was attempting to posit, which was:

    (1) someone like that running for president on the other party’s ticket
    (2) in order to harm that party

    This was the entire quote:

    …what’s to prevent a candidate who is against a party and out to destroy it from using that party’s primary process to harm it? What makes Trump a Republican eligible to run in the primary? Because he says he is? I don’t think the situation has ever come up before.

43. The case for Trump as Democrat plant keeps building. The result of the way he’s running his campaign is either alienating enough of the GOP base so that he wins the nomination then loses the general, or loses the nomination and sabotages the general for whoever does win it.

    My only hope is that he does something drastic like going 3rd party (which cannot possibly succeed), and some of his followers wake up because of it.

44. “. . . some of his followers wake up because of it.”

    In light of the Naked Emperor followers’ syndrome human beings harbor, can it be likely that a significant number of those followers who have invested their own gullible support for Trump will face their self-duping now? Not so likely at this point I think, at least for those who can already dismiss Jimmy Carter’s endorsement of Trump and then turn now to dismiss Trump’s own CodePinkerism. These supporters can’t admit their dupery, their chumpitude. Nope, they’re all genuises right along with their Donald, so will hold out at every cost, everyone else be damned.

45. Since Trump/MSNBC just announced that Joe Scarborough is holding a Town Hall meeting with Trump that goes up against CNN’s Town Hall Meeting with Rubio/Cruz/Carson, I would say Trump is in full destruction mode of the GOP and is confirming almost everyone with a brain’s assertion that he is a plant.

46. LDC, I wasn’t fully convinced that Trump was a plant until the South Carolina debate. Now there no other explanation for his attacks. He is building a small but loyal following for a 3rd Party run.

47. And as Trump supporters shout “TRUMP! TRUMP! 2016!”

48. While I acknowledge that it is a real possibility, I’m not yet persuaded that Trump is out to destroy the Republican party.

    “The Other Chuck” claims that Trump cannot “win the nomination let alone the general election without the 2/3 of the Republican Party electorate currently aligned against him”.

    Romney in 2012 won the nomination with 51% of the delegates. The Electoral College consists of 538 electors and a majority of 270 electoral votes wins the election. That demonstrably disproves Chuck’s assertion that Trump must have the other 2/3 of the Republican Party electorate currently aligned against him. It also ignores the fact that if nominated, a refusal to vote for Trump would be a vote for the democrat.

    Chuck asks, “Why would he consistently alienate them if he truly intends to go on to win? Why wouldn’t he be trying his best to bring them around so that his vision of restoring American greatness gets a national hearing?”

    Perhaps because in his judgement there is no compromise possible with the GOPe and its supporters before he has the leverage to force real concessions from them? Which would be after he’s won the election anyway. That being when his leverage with the GOPe would be strongest.

    That may not be true but at this point it is an alternative explanation to Chuck’s certainty that Trump “has no intention of compromising with the right because his purpose is to disrupt and destroy it.”

    I see Trump’s threats to sue and possibly go 3rd party, simply as attempts at political intimidation.

    BTW, none of this obviates neo’s accusations as to Trump’s inherent nature.

49. Every day we are “treated” to The Donald’s two most obvious psychopathologies:

    1.) KING BABY 2.)Malignant Narcissist

    Both on steroids. Oval Office? Nope. Nein. Nada.

50. Geoffrey Britain, you sound like Limbaugh today making excuses for this boor from hell. I have another take on him from a business standpoint. He is being backed by the billionaire corporate raider Carl Icahn to the tune of a $100 million superpac. He’s acting as Icahn’s lackey or perhaps partner. Trump is treating the GOP establishment as he and Icahn would the failed management of a ripe for picking, down and out corporation which has lost a sizable amount of investor support. To Trump this is a hostile takeover. He plans on peeling off as many investors as possible and then watch as the whole thing implodes for lack of support. The passion he showed at the South Carolina debate is heart felt. He is a Democrat through and through as is Icahn. He doesn’t care about gaining future voters, only denying a critical segment to his rivals so that the GOP fails.

    You may not agree with the analogy, but during my many years in business I’ve dealt with this type, if not at this level. I can spot a business con man, and Trump is right up there with the best. I know their methods, their sales tactics, and their lack of morals. This is a con of major proportions, way beyond Bernie Madoff. This is a con being perpetrated on the entire country.

51. The Other Chuck,

    However I may sound to your mind, it is not my intention to make excuses for Trump. I am NOT a fan. My perspective is a bit different from yours and so I’m simply not fully convinced that his intent is mendacious. Unlike yourself, neo, parker and others, I haven’t seen enough of what for me, would amount to definitive proof, so as to reach that judgement. But his essentially libelous accusations of Cruz are pushing me in that direction.

    You may very well be right. Again, I’m not yet persuaded that Trump is out to destroy the Republican party. Which is an accusation that his goals and motivations are malicious. In many ways he’s a reprehensible human being but that doesn’t make him a political agent provocateur of the democrats.

    I’ve always registered as unaffiliated voter but here in Florida, I am going to register as a republican, so I can vote for Cruz. Since the FL primary is in August, it may not matter but I’m not going to assume it won’t.

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