It is certainly the case that nearly everyone is on edge and testy these days. I think you had made it clear that you were not supporting Trump. Trump presses people’s buttons, however.

If you’re saying that Trump’s book is interesting in and of itself, rather than as a guide to Trump’s mind, than I can accept that it might indeed have value for the ideas that are in it, wherever they may have originated. But as a guide to Trump himself, their only meaning to me would be something like “I’m Donald Trump, and I approve of this message—for the moment, anyway.”

As far as Cruz’s ad goes—the one you mentioned, about Planned Parenthood and Trump—I hate the use of truncated quotes in that manner, and I hate them whenever they’re used. They are, however, used constantly in political ads, so much so that they are simply standard. That doesn’t mean I like them, and the person using them is not enhanced in my eyes.

That said, the thing about Trump’s current anti-abortion position is that he was long an advocate of completely unrestricted abortion, and as late as 1999 (he was in his mid-50s then) that included partial-birth abortion. You can read his explanation of his change of heart on partial-birth abortion here, and it seems to me to be pragmatic and political, to be changed on a dime when he feels like it. Plus, it shows his lack of due diligence in studying issues before he opines on them.

In a 2011 interview Trump gave a reason why he’s now pro-life:

One of the primary reasons I changed [was] a friend of mine’s wife was pregnant, and he didn’t really want the baby. He was crying as he was telling me the story. He ends up having the baby and the baby is the apple of his eye. It’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened to him. And you know here’s a baby that wasn’t going to be let into life. And I heard this, and some other stories, and I am pro-life.

Sorry, but that just sounds bogus to me—and, if not bogus, then certainly rather strange. It’ the sort of thing a very young adult might say, and yet this incident had to have happened to Trump sometime after his mid-50 and probably in his 60s. Where had he been till then? Had he never pondered much of anything? What sort of moral and psychological depth does he has? What’s to stop another sob story from changing his mind back again? How shallow is he?

At least with Cruz I know what his stance is, and that it is unlikely to change, and that it comes from something more than political expedience or some passing emotion.

I have not praised the book, but rather indicated that it is of value in itself, apart from Trump.

I have never said that people should judge Trump by believing the book rather than Trump himself, nor would I ever.

I listen, in real-time, to all debates, speeches, SOTUs, and every townhall and interview I can, just so I can listen to the actual words spoken. I do not base my judgment of candidates on their books.

I personally couldn’t care less if anyone ever gives Trump another look.

This is why I dreaded saying anything. Even when I deliberately and specifically write the words, “I am not endorsing Trump,” I like Cruz, and I like Dr. Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina, and I’m wavering on Rubio, I’m called, by inference, a liar.

I recommended a simply written book, easy to read, conversational in style, and it presenting many conservative solutions and why they would work. If anyone ever dares to read it, they might take off the slip jacket, remove the binding, tear out the pages that even mention he who obviously can’t even be mentioned, and give the book to a teen or college kid to read, (perhaps after taking the extra step of after getting someone to drive out the demon that apparently lurks within its very being.)

If the kid finds it interesting, and different from what he is learning at school or college, discuss it with the newly partially-enlightened kid–without mentioning You Know Who, of course. And introduce another book, your choice. And then another. The conservative ideas are good even when written by a ghostwriter.

And I’ll go back to thinking more about what Eric has been writing about. And also how it is possible to analyze the Trump campaign and its progress in terms of the effects it has on people. And how in the larger picture, people can lose a priceless heritage and history, and end up with the campaign of 2016.

NOT AN ENDORSEMENT OF ANYONE.

Get a grip, people.

You want us to give him another look by reading his commissioned piece of propaganda? The way he has led his life, both business and personal, is dishonest. Why should we pay attention to something he had others write for him? It’s a script he had written that doesn’t match in any way how he has conducted his life.

Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?

I think the Trump phenomenon is fascinating for many reasons, and the book is one of them. Here is a book that presents, conversationally, useful ideas on how to change the mess in Washington, along with a short discussion of WHY they are good solutions, and it gives good basic reasons to recognize Global Warming for the fraud it is. If it were written by Etaoin Shrdlu, it would still be an interesting and useful book to give to a teen or college kid, to open a discussion. Here is a basic, logical presentation and explication of a lot of useful conservative ideas based on the real world and what works and some of why. It occurred to me that in many ways it is like one of those old-fashioned pamphlets that showed people how to build basic electronic set-ups, and why they work, that led a lot of them to build their own “primitive” homemade radios in the early 1900s. I find the book interesting because, unlike Progressive ideas, which fail in the cold light of day–as per the major cities that are disasters–conservative ideas work for real-world reasons. (Which is why the Left is terrified of Free Speech.)

There is a whole world of ideas that come from the fact of the matter of the book and what it represents. It is not a manifesto, or a holy relic, and this is not an endorsement of Trump–it is one manifestation of the fact that conservative ideas, fleshed out in the world, would work. If you had that, why would you not put it into use? This question carries some important philosophical freight with it.

Moreover, it is an invalid extrapolation to infer from my interest in the book that I am pro-Trump, or believe he’s a savoir. I explicitly named my preferences elsewise, and my only Savior is Christ. The reason that the book made me look at Trump differently is because the Trump campaign contains within it a body of process and actions that are extremely valuable to study and analyze and wonder about. Eric has been proselytizing an adoption of the activist operational methodology–Geeze! Is he right! Not the way that Trump has done it, with the tactic of personal invective, but the concept of adopting the action. For instance, it is crazy how we have seen the PC metaphysic damaged.

As to economic subsidies, my economic beliefs have come from many sources, but you can judge my views from a partial list of those I read avidly and happily: George Reisman (Pepperdine), von Hayek, Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell, Bastiat, Adam Smith (1776), Walter Williams, Ayn Rand, and George Gilder, etc. I have read many others, with whom I disagree, including Keynes.

And taking a person’s words, out of context, or in truncated form where a qualifier is removed, or once held but now renounced, and juxtaposing them with an image, a video clip, or words written or spoken, is not an honest act. Cruz has done it against Rubio as well as Trump. When a man says, distinctly, that except for the abortion part, PP does good things, and a commercial juxtaposes a clip of the baby body parts video with Trump saying ONLY the part that PP does good things, it’s an particularly ugly lie.

The following quote from Alinsky is the essence of Trump’s campaign and an exact description of his method of personal attack. It should be turned right back on him. Expose his fraud, his demagoguery, and his lies, and make it very personal. Forget the issues:

* RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)

I disagree with your arguments about the Iraq War, not they you are wrong in what you say, but the public is tuned out to rehashing it and it is therefore a waste of time. Also, there is no one in the Republican Party who has the stature to do it, not even Cruz. For all practical purposes W and Cheney were disgraced. And I suspect W’s silence the last 7 years has been the result of an unstated but nevertheless quid pro quo deal to avoid prosecution for war crimes.

Actually, the argument against Trump wasn’t so much about whether he was for or against the war, it was about his repeated lies about how early he was against the war.

That lie (I was against it even before it began, right from the start) rests in turn upon the erroneous foundation that he could presciently see what no one else could, and it’s paired with the accusation that “Bush lied,” with the implication that if Bush had had any judgment he’d have seen it too. It also is Trump’s argument that he knows better than the other candidates, because he saw from the beginning what they were unable to see.

And it’s all a lie on Trump’s part, because he wasn’t against the war when he said he was.

Trump’s entire argument does rest on an assumption that the war was a bad and wrong idea, and it also falls apart if it was a good idea. But most people do assume it was a bad idea, and they are criticizing Trump for his lying about his own brilliance and the timing of his opposition, rather than his pro or con stance itself.

The takeaway from Minta Marie Morze’s comment is that the longer the Trump campaign holds fast while the Republicans’ counter-Trump strategy is deficient, the more the Trump campaign can chip – has already chipped – away already-disaffected chunks of traditional Republican constituents and rearrange(d) them into the Trump alternative orbit.