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A little historic perspective on Trump and me — 75 Comments

1. Neo, I wish you hadn’t written this piece today since I just mailed my ballot.

   Let us hope that if elected we will see that he has “evolved”.

   It finally just came down to the SCOTUS appointments. I know it is chancy with Trump; but it is a sure thing with Hillary.

   The great Michael Ramirez has a cartoon that captures the essence of this election perfectly. It was in my morning rag a few days ago; but, can also be found on his website, Michaelpramirez.com, under the title “American Roulette”.

2. ” The things he said in those interviews are right smack out of the leftist handbook.”

   This I agree is so. However, on no account do I believe this simple statement is sufficient to explain Donald Trump’s underlying motivation, though I do think the proposition can and does play an ex post facto sort of role in his argumentation at the time. Advancing an honest political principle simply doesn’t appear to be a part of Trump’s character.

   On the other hand, I do not see, nor have I seen anyone else present what would substantiate a sufficient account of the particulars for Trump’s underlying motivation for these hateful calumnies against George W. Bush. Neither would I expect Trump himself to be forthcoming as to that, though he may privately know precisely why he attaches such an animus to Bush.

   On suspicion, I’d look to Trump’s own accounts of his well known revenge motivations, score-evening, as Trump presents them, and about these he has been quite forthcoming.

   So, on that account, I’d reckon some long past slight, some contempt — in Trump’s mind, some shaming against him of great significance — had transpired from Bush toward Trump, and in consequence Trump simply has not had his fill of revenge to date.

   So the question has to remain open for me, though I have this stated suspicion about it. Evidence, I have none.

3. sdferr:

   I happen to have written an article about that very topic, for the Weekly Standard. See this.

   It is partly revenge, and it is partly what he actually believes about Bush and Iraq and evil and Pelosi and impeachment.

   It is also revealing about Trump in another way. I think that Trump has no problem believing a president would lie about such an enormous matter because Trump himself has no interest in telling the truth, and would lie for any reason without a qualm of conscience. He is a pathological liar, and perhaps he thinks everyone else is, too.

   I wouldn’t put it past him.

4. Oldflyer:

   Don’t feel the least bit bad. You did the best you could do, after much soul-searching. Who knows what’s best? I wish I did, but I don’t.

   But the stuff in this post, multiplied by about a thousand more things, is the sort of thing that haunts me when I try to decide.

   I didn’t even write this post to discourage people from voting for Trump. I wrote it to explain myself.

5. Thanks much for the link, neo-neocon, I’ll go read that.

6. Looks like we share the same question as to the particular (personal) seed of Trump’s hatred, neo-neocon, and yet lack the answer. That Trump hates Bush is clear. Over what exactly? I still don’t know.

   Dollars to doughnuts though? I suspect it’s probable that the matter would seem quite trivial to anyone not named Donald Trump. In that sense, it isn’t surprising to find Trump keeps it to himself.

7. neo-neocon wrote,

   “I assume that most Trump defenders here won’t like being reminded of these remarks of his, nor will they like the remarks themselves. But they will strongly suggest that we ignore them because defeating Hillary justifies taking a chance with Trump despite them.”

   I agree, and I encourage everyone to vote for Trump.

   Remember, few if any of us here had Trump as one of their top 10 choices among the Republican primary candidates.

   A government led by Hillary Clinton will ooze with cronyism, scapegoating, corruption and criminality.

   A government led by Hillary Clinton would enable the likes of Pelosi and Warren to thrive. A government led by Hillary Clinton would give us many more Lois Lerners.

   Some people have criticized FBI director for BOTH his July 5 and October 28, 2016 statements about the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton. They say that the FBI should not make public statements about investigations that have not already led to an indictment. HOWEVER, those people forget that Comey’s July 5th statement was actually necessitated by Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s comment about what the Department of Justice would do with respect to charging or not of Hillary Clinton with a crime. See,

   http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/02/us/politics/loretta-lynch-hillary-clinton-email-server.html

   “Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch, conceding that her airport meeting with former President Bill Clinton this week had cast a shadow over the federal investigation of Hillary Clinton’s personal email account, said Friday that she would accept whatever recommendations career prosecutors and the F.B.I. director made about whether to bring charges in the case.”

   With Lynch’s saying that she was going to rely on what the FBI director recommended, Comey was forced to publicly disclose his recommendation and his reasoning for it.

   Comey’s October 28th public statement (i.e., his letter to Congress) was logically required in view of his prior public statement, which in turn was required by Lynch’s public statement that she would rely on Comey’s recommendation. AND, Lynch’s statement was required because of her tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton.

   So, everything touched by Bill or Hillary Clinton gets corrupted.

   Would a government bureaucracy filled with left leaning apparatchiks impede a wrong-doing Hillary more than it would impede a wrong-doing Trump??? Nooooooooooo!

   Would Congress more likely oppose a wrong-headed Hillary than a wrong-headed Trump??? Nooooooooooo!

   With a definition of insanity being doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results, and with (i) electing Hillary being doing more of the same thing, and (ii) voting for Trump gives us the best chance of preventing Hillary from being president, logic tells us that not voting for Trump is crazy.

8. “The things he said in those interviews are right smack out of the leftist handbook.” neo

   Indeed they are but Trump is no leftist. He simply swallows whole whatever meme most appeals in the moment. That’s why he seized the proven falsity that Bush lied. It provided perfect cover for personal animosity.

   Trump is a social liberal and crony capitalist who is canny enough to see where the Left is leading America. Cunning enough to see that most capitalists are selling the Left enough ‘rope’ with which, when the time comes to be hanged. Every position Trump holds is predicated upon whether that issue presents a potential personal threat to himself and his way of life.

   Trump may destroy us, Hillary and her ilk intend to enslave us. All for our own good, of course.

   So it’s fair to accuse Trump of selfishness but inaccurate for anyone to imagine that he’s an ideologue. And therein lies the difference between Trump and Hillary. A graduating thesis based on personal interviews with Saul Alinsky, It Takes a Village, support for open borders, the Iran ‘deal’…
   Hillary is an ideologue and ideologues are far more dangerous to a society than are the greedy and self-absorbed.

9. sdferr:

   I thought that information I was getting at was in that WS article I wrote. But it wasn’t, and I can’t find the source now—but I remembered reading about something that occurred between Trump and George Bush the elder, something about Trump being very angry about Bush the elder not doing him some political favor he expected to get long ago (regarding his real estate empire? I just don’t remember).

   Can’t find it now. But I recall that as being the beginning. I read it in some long article somewhere.

   But Trump also is a Buchananite isolationist on foreign policy (and that’s part of the reason he was criticizing Bush junior on Iraq). Mostly a Buchananite, anyway, except when he thinks it serves him to mouth off in the opposite direction.

10. Trump is no friend to de Tocqueville, that’s for damned sure.

11. I agree with your assessment of Trump; that is why I opposed him strongly during the primaries. Now, though, he isn’t Hillary. If he gets elected and reverts to acting as if he were, I hope there are enough political enemies of his in Congress to impeach.

12. raf:

    This is why I think Trump is unlikely to be impeached and convicted. “Impeached” is meaningless, by the way, as we found out from Bill Clinton.

    It is a facile idea that Trump would be convicted and therefore removed from office. No president ever has been. It’s not an easy thing to do.

13. Distrust is reasonable. Reservations are reasonable. Hillary’s actions are not. She must be voted against.

14. Geoffrey Britain:

    Trump isn’t an ideologue; he’s a narcissist, a pathological liar, and perhaps a sociopath.

    Those are not recommendations, however. Ideologues are actually more trustworthy and predictable, even if you disagree with their ideology.

    However, despite not being an ideologue, Trump has basic political ideologies to which he tends to fasten. In terms of foreign policy, he is most like Pat Buchanan: an isolationist. However, he is so unpredictable that you can’t rely on that the way you might be able to with Buchanan himself. Trump is a loose cannon in every respect, but nevertheless his foreign policy ideology is basically Buchananite. His social policy is basically liberal. His fiscal policy is both protectionist and mish-mash. And his constitutional policy is “L’etat c’est moi.”

15. “even some small chance that he will be worse.” – Neo

    “worse” as in “off the scales worse”. The swing voters, evidently, don’t buy the “flight 93” case, but probably sense from trump an unpredictability.

    It is not just a matter of distrust, but of being unmoored from any consistent principle, and little consideration of any principles other than surface level to appease who he needs to at a given moment. That unpredictability is itself a danger.

    The electorate may not trust clinton, but they also see a whole lot of things from trump that just don’t make a lot of sense.

    Bad as she is, clinton is more “predictable”, something that people may feel they can better deal with in their day to day lives.

    In a chaos (and corruption) vs corruption election, people will gravitate away from chaos.

    Afterall, isn’t that a good word to describe this 2016 election – a slow boil level of “chaos”? Always some surprise just around the corner? Certainly felt/feels that way.

16. A scetch of the career of ideology.

    And a very queer career it has been.

17. neo,

    Trump is certainly a narcissist. He’s a liar when it suits him, which is why I don’t think its pathological. I don’t perceive him as feeling compelled to lie, so I’m very doubtful of sociopathy. He’s just a self-absorbed, little man who out of deeply buried insecurity wants others to confirm that he’s the most important person in the room.

    I agree that ideologues are more trustworthy and predictable, which is why Hillary’s corruption is of secondary concern to me. She’s an ideologue, much more than Bill Clinton, who learned from him the value of pragmatism in achieving the maximum possible.

    I agree that Trump is an isolationist but I do not think he’s as impulsively unpredictable as you fear. Economically, I suspect he would do much better than many imagine. If he wins, there will be plenty of time to go into my reasons for thinking that way. And if he loses, what might have been will be moot.

18. Big Maq,

    I agree that Trump’s flaws disqualify him. Tragically, the alternative is worse and far more certain. Some survive periods of chaos, no soul survives 1984. If you doubt it look to Cuba, China and N. Korea and the future prospect for individual liberty in those societies. That’s the Left’s destination and open borders with a path to citizenship makes it inescapable.

19. Geoffrey Britain:

    Many of Trump’s lies, both now and earlier in his long life of lying, are not strategic at all.

    He is a pathological liar. Some of his lies are merely for the sake of lying and are easily disproven. He lies as easily as he speaks.

    Nor would it be better if he were merely a strategic liar. He is an inveterate, amoral, habitual liar. Nothing he says can be trusted, whatever his motives.

20. It’s 1964 all over again. The new Clinton ad is an update of the girl with the daisy followed by a nuclear mushroom cloud, sure to follow if the other is elected. This is followed by devastating comments about nuclear bombs and bombing by Trump. If I was Hillary, I would play that ad on a continuous loop.

21. “. . . bombing by Trump.”

    What utter tripe.

    But isn’t it interesting that in order to frighten voters Mrs. Clinton cannot or chooses not to say the truth about Trump regarding nuclear dangers? Namely, that his frailty and weakness is far more likely to lead to such troubles than any rash decision to a first use.

    What crap. What moronic crap the Americans put up with from their politicians. It’s often a wonder to me that they don’t seek these assholes out on the street in order to strangle them with their bare hands.

22. “logic tells us that not voting for Trump is crazy.”

    No it doesn’t.

    “Now, though, he isn’t Hillary. If he gets elected and reverts to acting as if he were, I hope there are enough political enemies of his in Congress to impeach”

    Not gonna happen.

    “If you doubt it look to Cuba, China and N. Korea and the future prospect for individual liberty in those societies. That’s the Left’s destination and open borders with a path to citizenship makes it inescapable.”

    I think the apocalyptic vision of post Hillary America is so popular because it’s almost the only reason to vote for Trump.

    Cuba is not the future. Cuba is one of the last remaining communist countries and a living object lesson that it doesn’t work. I think once the Castros shuffle off their mortal coil things will change there. I actually agreed with Obama that opening things up was the right thing to do – overwhelm them with capitalism and openness. I wished he had attached some meaningful civil rights riders to the deal. Side topic, sorry.

    North Korea is a hermit kingdom that has a population an inch or two shorter on average than their brothers/sisters a few miles to the south as a living testament that cult marxist kingdoms don’t work and brutalize their people.

    China is another story, of course, but it’s nothing like the dark Maoist disaster it was 40 years ago.

    What I don’t get – and I am no Hillary fan and would never vote for her (despite the growing “Bill’s a Hillary Troll” movement here in the comments threads) – isn’t it more reasonable that HRC wants us to move more toward Sweden or Canada than freakin’ NORTH KOREA?

    She is a left-center-left conventional Dem who has moved more left in the campaign because of the 70 year old socialist who ran against her. She’s hawkish on foreign policy and she will be an awful President all around. But she doesn’t have the political chops to rule this country like Stalin and (I know this is heresy in these parts) I doubt seriously that she wants to turn this country into a Dystopia. We may become one anyway due to terrorist attacks and economic collapses but my guess is she’d like to be remembered fondly. As would Trump. These are bad people. They aren’t Grond, Destroyer of Mankind.

    Neo: “every fiber of my being revolts against it”

    I know the feeling. I’d say go with your gut but I know you will make the right decision (whatever that might be) when you enter the booth. Few have put in the time you have in thinking about/writing about this decision.

    I voted McMulling and all R downticket. My wife did similar but she also didn’t vote for Culberson because he was a Trump-head and she just decided that he hadn’t earned her vote.

23. “McMulling” = “McMullin”

24. “Tragically, the alternative is worse and far more certain. Some survive periods of chaos, no soul survives 1984. If you doubt it look to Cuba, China and N. Korea and the future prospect for individual liberty in those societies. That’s the Left’s destination and open borders with a path to citizenship makes it inescapable.” – GB

    Flight 93, gulags, etc..

    That world only becomes true if we assume that we cannot possibly convince enough people to vote our way, and so we needn’t bother to try.

25. Stay strong, you don’t want to feel like you have to go home and take a shower or throw up after you vote.

26. “isn’t it more reasonable that HRC wants us to move more toward Sweden or Canada than freakin’ NORTH KOREA?” Bill

    Absolutely, which is why I said, “That’s the Left’s destination“. ‘Progressive’ socialism’ inescapably evolves into communism. It’s incrementally happening in Europe as we speak.

    That socialism must incrementally evolve into communism is not just my assessment. George Orwell, Ludwig von Mises, Vladimir Lenin and Nikita Khrushchev all declared that to be their assessment as well. This is so because socialism is an unsustainable economic system. To maintain it, gradually all thought, speech and behavior is declared to be either forbidden or mandatory.

27. Geoffrey:

    “That socialism must incrementally evolve into communism is not just my assessment.”

    If that is so why are the Swede’s backing away from the socialist path? Why did the eastern european Warsaw pact “states” leave the blessed Soviet orbit or not continue even after the fall of USSR? Why indeed? Predictions, by any authority are just that, predictions, history and what has happened is often something else. Don’t trot out the “in the fullness of time” argument.

28. Geoffrey Britain:

    I know that’s a common theory, but I don’t think it bears out in practice.

    I do think that socialism tends more often than not to evolve in the direction of more statism and less liberty, more PC thought, and more control of the individual by the group. But the totalitarian Communist countries I can think of did NOT evolve from a Swedish type socialism; they pretty much went the whole hog right away (Russia, China, Cuba, North Vietnam, etc.). And a place such as Sweden, which started being socialist around the 1970s, has in recent years been retreating from socialism, and when I last checked the gulags had yet to arrive. My sense of the possible future of Sweden does not include Communism, and its actually more likely that its devotion to PC thought will allow a sharia takeover than a Communist one.

    I agree with Bill that Hillary is more along the lines of European socialism, just as Obama was. I’m not in favor of it and I’m not voting for it, but I don’t think it inevitably leads to Communism. I just don’t see that when I look around me, theories of brilliant thinkers notwithstanding.

    That does not mean, of course, that such a transition from European social welfare state to Communism is impossible. It certainly could happen. I just don’t see it as anything like an inevitable or even very likely progression.

29. BLITZER: [What do you think of] Nancy Pelosi, the speaker?

    TRUMP: Well, you know, when she first got in and was named speaker, I met her. And I’m very impressed by her. I think she’s a very impressive person. I like her a lot.
    But I was surprised that she didn’t do more in terms of Bush and going after Bush. It was almost – it just seemed like she was going to really look to impeach Bush and get him out of office, which, personally, I think would have been a wonderful thing.

    I never would agree with Trump on the above. Hold my nose and vote.

30. I may end up voting for him but I am not happy about it and I don’t know that I can even justify it except to say that Hillary would be worse – although to be honest — because Trump is such a loose cannon, I am not sure that is true. With Hillary we get more of the same but more corruption than with Obama. With Trump we get someone who says crazy things about foreign policy say, and has no experience – a loose cannon. OK, once I write the above I realize I am thinking Hillary is worse, but not by much.

    I may take a chance on Trump and he will have a congress to oppose some of his weirder impulses and advisers. Clinton is also turning out to be even worse than I imagined, more corrupt and possibly treasonous. The Wikileaks is showing this. That’s why I am becoming convinced that Trump might be better in spite of his many flaws.

    Electing Trump will also blow up the whole media/academia/Washington elite and end the Clinton/Bush years for good. He’s already finished off the Bushes, now the Clintons. Things in Washington are a little too snug and smug, so there’s that.

    However, he IS Donald Trump. That’s the problem…

31. BTW, I agree with some folks above and Neo that Clinton won’t make us into a communist country or (as Trump claims in some heated speeches) “end civilization”. She will pull us more toward being like Canada or the EU countries though and more under the thrall of PC. In the long run, this might end civilization – haha – though I doubt it. The Wikileaks do show she is not really a Black Lives Matter fan but she felt compelled to give them room because she was running against Bernie. That’s very good news. Still – she can’t be trusted to not pander to them.

    However, she might be more moderate than Obama however… she’s not above using the gender card a LOT, and has already with Trump. Not that he doesn’t leave himself wide open by being a huge cad and possibly worse. So where Obama used race, Clinton will use gender or the woman card. Expect a lot more men apologizing for “male privilege” in the years ahead just as white people being apologetic about their “white privilege” has gone mainstream in the Obama years. This will get very tiring and might ruin a few marriages. Heh — But it is not Kim Jong un or Fidel… though there are traces and echoes, it is just horrid and draining American PC talk.

    Her policies will likely drain us and keep the economy sluggish, all while Elizabeth Warren preaches to us. However, I don’t think she’s Elizabeth Warren… who might actually oppose her in some ways when she is in office (assuming she gets there).

    What really bothers me though is the very real possibility, revealed by some Wikileaks that Clinton is really REALLY corrupt and really thinks she is above the law. And, she’s a globalist and I’ve come to see that as destructive. I am for free trade but “open borders” is a bad idea.

    Also, the refugees… one good reason to vote for Trump is to keep Muslim migrants and refugees OUT. We don’t need the headaches. They will bring “headaches”: sexual assault, gay bashing, general terrorism, more demands to limit free speech to not offend “the prophet”, just more of what we don’t need.

    OK, for now, I’ve convinced myself to vote for Trump but then, I will read some stupid thing he said…like ‘what is the problem with Saudi Arabia getting nukes?’ (paraphrase) I guess that’s how it goes. Shit sandwich but I might have to eat it

32. “He’s already finished off the Bushes, now the Clintons. Things in Washington are a little too snug and smug, so there’s that.”

    Yeah, with his brilliant strategy of calling Jeb “Low Energy Jeb”.

    Trump didn’t “finish off the Bushes”. Jeb never had a chance, in my opinion, and it always bothered me when the GOP power brokers didn’t see that.

    Oh to go back about 18 months . . . We could be enjoying Rubio’s 10 point lead over HRC right now.

33. Well, we all obviously want to vent, because we don’t have many good options.

    I do not believe that Hillary will make us into a European style socialist country through her own policy decisions. I do believe that her policies will continue the trend toward big, intrusive government. I do think, strangely enough, that Slick will act as a Governor on her impulses (governor as in brake); unless,of course, she dumps him when he is no longer useful.

    But, Hillary can, and likely will, take certain actions that will inevitably put us on a road to Socialism. Everything having been considered, I return to what is the crux of the problem for me. SCOTUS. Call me crazy, but I take Trump at his word on the type of Justices he will appoint. It is often said that the U.S. can survive a bad President. How about two in a row? Maybe. But, I do not believe that we can survive as anything resembling the country we cherish if the court is packed with a clear majority of Leftists. Three or four Ginsbergs to go along with the others? Scary. Hillary can, and will do that. Argument settled in my mind. I hate it, but that is where I am.

34. ” “Impeached” is meaningless, by the way, as we found out from Bill Clinton.” {Neo @ 4:22]

    Neo,

    I think Richard Nixon would disagree with you.

    It’s not that it’s easy or difficult to convict a president old impeachment, it’s a lever. It depends on how it is used.

    In Nixon’s case it led directly to his resignation. It can also lead to a sense of invalidation of the leader. Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV found this out the hard way when Pope Gregory VII forced him to wait three days in the snow (excommunication, but same thing). This act, impossible 100 years earlier, led directly to the papal domination of Europe from 1077 on resulting in the Renaissance warrior popes such as Julius II.

    Imagine a President Trump impeached but not convicted. We saw how quickly the Republicans jumped the sinking ship when the Billy Bush tape was aired. The Dems, of course, would oppose him on principle (the principle that he’s an elected Republican). IMO even a Republican controlled house and senate would use any excuse they could to look good by making Trump look bad after all of the bad blood which has risen in this election.

    I could just see Bill Kristol’s first “I told you so” article, with Jen Bush and Kasich right behind.

    Make no mistake about it, even if elected, IMO Trump will have a fine line to walk if he really wants to accomplish anything.

35. “convict a president oldof impeachment . . . .’

    “. . .with JenJeb Bush and Kasich . . . “

36. “IMO Trump will have a fine line to walk if he really wants to accomplish anything.” – T

    Would agree with this, IF trump seemed the kind of person who cared about walking a fine / straight line.

    He’s given us plenty of reason to think he won’t, and, instead, will bully his way through, and make significant new precedent in his use of executive powers.

    How the GOP has behaved thus far, cannot say that it looks like Congress would have enough of a majority to do much about it. Instead, I’d bet that any GOP naysayers would be brought to heel, no different than Cruz, or they’d have to leave the party and all that comes with it.

37. Neo:
    “The things he said in those interviews are right smack out of the leftist handbook.”

    Also the alt-Right handbook, which is really the Russian disinformation handbook.

    http://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html

38. On the socialism / Communism dynamic: good points were raised. Societies, unlike organisms, don’t “evolve” – it’s a metaphor. However, there is no doubt that all Communists claim to be promoting socialism as the foundation of their despotism, and Socialists (as in Sweden) also claim socialism as their ideology, so it’s not unreasonable to keep an eye on which way they are going to trend.

    Neo: “I do think that socialism tends more often than not to evolve in the direction of more statism and less liberty, more PC thought, and more control of the individual by the group.”
    Which is what Hayek said (GB should have added him to the list), that socialism will incrementally “evolve” into tyranny, and that is pretty much indisputable – because once you start imposing government control of so much of society (by force, of course) you have to keep going, or else bail out completely (the former Warsaw Pact countries may be out of the Soviet system, but they aren’t completely non-socialist, no modern state is).
    GB: “This is so because socialism is an unsustainable economic system. To maintain it, gradually all thought, speech and behavior is declared to be either forbidden or mandatory.”

    I was musing today about the formulation “you can’t have just a little bit of socialism” as being analogous to “you can’t be just a little bit pregnant” — which in former days was a truism implying that you were either pregnant or not, with no middle ground: if you were, then there would be a baby eventually, so deal with it.
    Today, of course, since the advent of “safe, legal, and rare (hah)” abortion, in which pregnancy is not irrevocably tied to the eventual appearance of a child, then you can indeed be “a little bit pregnant” for a while.
    So it is no stretch for believers in that to also, truly, believe that you can be “a little bit socialist” without ending up with tyranny.

    Both are corrupt, and corrupting, points of view.

39. Regarding the apocalyptic argument for Trump – the flight 93 “this is our last chance if we don’t get this election right it’s the end of the Republic” argument, I’m not going to try to dissuade those using it as I do believe they actually believe it, and we’ve been over it a thousand times.

    But I have to say, I appreciate the Brian E’s and Irv’s who at least have tried to make a positive case for Trump.

40. Following sdferr’s “ideology” link led me to this article which is an excellent read about conservatism:
    http://web.archive.org/web/20130112205244/http://www.imaginativeconservative.org/p/by-russell-kirk-being-neither-religion.html
    “Ten Conservative Principles
    by Russell Kirk

    Russell Kirk
    Being neither a religion nor an ideology, the body of opinion termed conservatism possesses no Holy Writ and no Das Kapital to provide dogmata. So far as it is possible to determine what conservatives believe, the first principles of the conservative persuasion are derived from what leading conservative writers and public men have professed during the past two centuries. After some introductory remarks on this general theme, I will proceed to list ten such conservative principles.

    Perhaps it would be well, most of the time, to use this word “conservative” as an adjective chiefly. For there exists no Model Conservative, and conservatism is the negation of ideology: it is a state of mind, a type of character, a way of looking at the civil social order.

    The attitude we call conservatism is sustained by a body of sentiments, rather than by a system of ideological dogmata. It is almost true that a conservative may be defined as a person who thinks himself such. The conservative movement or body of opinion can accommodate a considerable diversity of views on a good many subjects, there being no Test Act or Thirty-Nine Articles of the conservative creed.

    In essence, the conservative person is simply one who finds the permanent things more pleasing than Chaos and Old Night. (Yet conservatives know, with Burke, that healthy “change is the means of our preservation.”) A people’s historic continuity of experience, says the conservative, offers a guide to policy far better than the abstract designs of coffee-house philosophers. But of course there is more to the conservative persuasion than this general attitude.

    It is not possible to draw up a neat catalogue of conservatives’ convictions; nevertheless, I offer you, summarily, ten general principles; it seems safe to say that most conservatives would subscribe to most of these maxims.
    …

41. Ill begotten cattle future windfall, White Water, Clinton Foundation… its all about the money stupid. Hillary and Slick Willy are all about the money, that’s what they want. Ideology is a distant second. Same goes for the Donald. Its all about the money. Arsenic or ricin pick your poison. Ingest a few curies of Strontium and fry your bone marrow. That is what we have come down to… the bottom of a very deep hole.

42. GB @ 5.15 PM:

    “Trump is certainly a narcissist. He’s a liar when it suits him, which is why I don’t think its pathological. I don’t perceive him as feeling compelled to lie, so I’m very doubtful of sociopathy. He’s just a self-absorbed, little man who out of deeply buried insecurity wants others to confirm that he’s the most important person in the room.”

    The types of lies that Trump makes may not fit the definition of clinical psychopathology, but they certainly show that he is disconnected from reality – because he has to create his own. Maybe some of them are calculated to manipulate circumstances to his favor, but others show a mind unable to distinguish between what is real and what is fantasy. No rational person can invent something in the morning and by afternoon act as though it never happened. Quite simply he cannot hold a thought unless it is written out for him by someone else.

    I’m certainly no psychologist and will admit that armchair analyzing isn’t a science, especially from someone with an ax to grind. But with those qualifiers, here goes:

    He appears to be a man with a driving need to control others – “you’re fired” – because he lacks the ability to control his own mind. It’s as if he has a mental flaw that doesn’t allow him to form concepts, let alone chains of concepts. Listening to him try to debate was agony. His mental processes are so, so disrupted. He can’t follow any train of thought. We all to some degree compartmentalize, put things in boxes so to speak, so that we can deal with them later. Trump’s mind is so disorganized that he can’t address the most simple problems at hand. He deflects away what he’s unable to grasp by changing the subject, going on the attack, rambling, or bluffing to the point of lying. I’ve seen this type of personality first hand in business, but never to the extreme of a Donald Trump. It’s my lay opinion that there is something very wrong with him.

43. “[Trump’s] given us plenty of reason to think he won’t, and, instead, will bully his way through . . . .” [Big Maq @ 9:27]

    Big Maq, I disagree. Remember first, Trump has been presented to us as a bully and unbalanced. These presentations are specifically the result of the Clinton campaign and the media which is in her pocket; take it with an entire shaker of salt.

    Second, I suggest that we don’t judge a potential Trump administration by campaign rhetoric. I find the contradiction telling; people dismiss him as a profligate liar, but take his campaign histrionics as indicative–ya can’t have it both ways. Now Neo will respond that Trump’s own actions show him to be a bully. Maybe so, but his entire history has been about deal-making. IMO Trump is smart enough to know that the “deplorables” who help him get elected will be of little help in crafting deals on capital hill to build a presidential legacy—and make no mistake, it’s the prestige of a legacy that motivates his ego, it’s certainly not any need for the income or to build a fortune.

    I expect Trump to be quite negotiable as he moves forward if elected. I also expect him to be a bully to get that done, but behind the scenes–in the boardroom with recalcitrant congressmen and senators that he “beats the snot” out of so-to-speak. He already made a claim to rescind many of Obama’s executive orders. If he does that, even he sees the contradiction of jumping on the executive order train, so I wouldn’t expect him to do so at least not right away.

    Again, it’s all speculation and opinion, but it’s what I think from the information I nave gleaned.

44. T:

    You wrote:

    ” “Impeached” is meaningless, by the way, as we found out from Bill Clinton.” {Neo @ 4:22]

    Neo,

    I think Richard Nixon would disagree with you.

    It’s not that it’s easy or difficult to convict a president old impeachment, it’s a lever. It depends on how it is used.

    In Nixon’s case it led directly to his resignation.

    What you wrote makes no sense to me.

    Nixon was never impeached, although articles of impeachment were drawn up. What happened was that, as things heated up, Congressional Republicans went to him and told him that they had the votes to impeach and convict him. Then he resigned.

    They neither impeached nor convicted him, but it was the threat of both that convinced him. Here is the story:

    On the night of August 7, 1974, Senators Barry Goldwater and Hugh Scott and Congressman John Jacob Rhodes met with Nixon in the Oval Office and told him that his support in Congress had all but disappeared. Rhodes told Nixon that he would face certain impeachment when the articles came up for vote in the full House. Goldwater and Scott told the president that there were enough votes in the Senate to convict him, and that no more than 15 Senators were willing to vote for acquittal.

    What would have occurred if they had impeached him, or told him he would be impeached, but didn’t have the votes to convict him? I don’t know, but it didn’t happen that way, so we’ll never know. He might very well have hung tough, as Bill Clinton did when he was impeached and not convicted. That’s my guess.

    As I said, Bill Clinton showed us that impeachment without conviction doesn’t matter. Nixon showed us that the threat of impeachment AND conviction matters.

45. European societies do not march in lockstep, Sweden among others is simply at the end of the socialistic spectrum. It’s partial retreat from socialism is temporary. But yes, Islam’s invasion of Western Europe may well derail the Left’s socialistic evolution of Europe into a theological tyranny.

    The Eastern European nations today reject socialism because communism was forced upon them. Call socialism’s end result… communism, bureaucratic tyranny, 1984 or any other label that resonates. What they all have in common is the collective standing upon the individual’s neck.

    Which leads to Hillary, who in and of herself is just another corrupt, power seeking politician. It’s the ideology she advocates wherein the threat lies. That ideology is IMO, very close to its tipping point into an irreversible advancement. If I am right in that assessment, then history will show that a Pres. Hillary acted as a fulcrum upon which that agenda was leveraged into permanent dominance.

46. Neo,

    You have made my point. I well remember the impeachment hearings of the ’70s. I realize that Nixon was neither impeached nor convicted.

    In Nixon’s case, just the threat of impeachment/conviction led to his resignation. In Clinton’s case, actual impeachment which should have had much more force, was meaningless without conviction.

    As I said, it’s a lever and it effectiveness depends on how it’s used, rather than in its existence per se.

47. AesopFan, a link to a package of three writings which you may find interesting (or perhaps not, I dunno): two by Edmund Husserl and one by Leo Strauss (Husserl’s student). From the latter [1971], I quote and add emphasis:

    “Not a few men have dreamt of rule over all human beings by themselves or others but they were dreamers or at least regarded as such by the philosophers. In our age on the other hand politics has in fact become universal. Unrest in what is loosely, not to say demagogically, called the ghetto of an American city has repercussions in Moscow, Peking, Johannesburg, Hanoi, London, and other far away places and is linked with them; whether the linkage is admitted or not makes no difference. Simultaneously political philosophy has disappeared. This is quite obvious in the East where Communists themselves call their doctrine their ideology.”

    This is a highly ironical remark by Strauss, and intended as such. He mocks the Communists who do not know of their own origins, and hence he can speak of “disappeared” political philosophy.

48. It amuses me to read Neo and others terming Trump a pathological liar.
    The “pathological” adjective is tossed around as if it had common meaning.
    Others blow other trumpets: narcissist, sociopath among them. None, or very few as best I can tell, have an educated professional’s understanding to qualify them in the use of those trumpets.

    As to liars in the White House, which POTUS since Coolidge did not lie to the sheeple? I particularly do not count the Democrats as truth-tellers. Oddly, Carter might have been the exception, but FDR? JFK? LBJ? WJC? BHO? Which of these was “pathologic” and which was just a common ordinary liar?

49. “As if” can be amusing too, Fred. “Zu den Sacher selbst!” also can be funny, if placed in the appropriate context.

50. Apologies Frog, for my writing “Fred” there where I meant Frog, though I reckon you guessed my error.

51. It seems to me that there are certain personalities that grate on some and not so much on others. Trump’s aggressive tendencies are seen by many as a huge threat to our democracy. They don’t want to be on the receiving end of that aggressive personality. Yet many who plan to vote for Trump believe he would be held in check by the MSM, the Democrats, the anti-Trump Republicans, and the advisors he has surrounded himself with. (Pence, Carson, Giuliani, Gingrich, Flynn, Christy, Huckabee, Stephen Moore, etc.) as particularly disturbing.

    Deep diving into all of Trump’s business deals reveals him as highly competitive, ruthless, vindictive, and mendacious. Yet, when you do the same with Hillary, you find the same pattern, just better disguised because she is a politician and is well versed in the art of deception.

    Any research into Hillary will show a person who from her senior thesis on Alinsky at Wellesley, to her dishonest work on the Watergate Committee, to her braggadocio defense of a rapist, to her acceptance of a cattle futures bribe, to her arrogant and vicious treatment of Arkansas State Police, to her firing of the White House travel personnel, to her collection of FBI files on Republican opponents, to her shoddy treatment of Secret Service agents and other White House staff, to her vindictive actions to ruin Bill’s paramours, ….well, you get the idea. She is aggressive, self centered, mean-spirited towards those of lesser status, mendacious, and willing to use power to damage others. sort Additionally, she is also a committed progressive ideologue.

    She and Trump are both of a kind – only the details differ. The difference is that Trump is not an ideologue. His ideology, if you can call it that, is pragmatism. He believes in whatever works for him at the moment. We can’t be certain, but he may actually appoint some conservative justices and secure the border. If he does nothing else, it would be a huge improvement over what Hillary will do.

    Both are revolting candidates. IMO, Trump is the less revolting.

52. Sorry for all the typos and disjointed phrases in the previous comment. My preview doesn’t work and my eyes are less than perfect this morning.

53. Seems to me that John Dewey also espoused pragmatism as the basis of his thinking, so there may be very little upon which to find any comfort in that term, insofar as Dewey was a socialist. Whatever works does express a sort of near perfect obscurity though, since no one can know aforehand what the results will be, hence what “will” work — winning, the supposed end, but anyone can see that loosing is just as likely an outcome in such a strategic swirl. This wasn’t U.S. Grant’s idea of strategy. Not a bit.

54. The clips from Trump that I’m hearing on the radio this morning : he sounds strangely sedated. Either he knows he’s losing or it’s an attempt to sound more Presidential (way too late in the game).

55. The clips from Trump that I’m hearing on the radio this morning : he sounds strangely sedated. Either he knows he’s losing or it’s an attempt to sound more Presidential (way too late in the game).- KLSmith

    He might be exhausted. I think, about 20 days before the election, he was going to do 4 rallies a day.

    He is 70.

56. “Big Maq, I disagree. Remember first, Trump has been presented to us as a bully and unbalanced. These presentations are specifically the result of the Clinton campaign and the media which is in her pocket; take it with an entire shaker of salt. “ – T

    BUT… and this is YUGE… it is all trump’s OWN WORDS!

    We’ve been getting practically 24/7 coverage of trump, because that is what trump seeks. His tweets and his speeches invariably have something “newsworthy”.

    Unlike prior elections where they took something small and made a great deal of it, or even lied – as in the granny off the cliff ad – today we are seeing and hearing from trump’s own words.

    There is little to exaggerate from what he says.

    Just saw a dem ad this a.m., where trump says “bomb the sh*t out of…”, and other quotes re: use of nuclear weapons… and then shows a nuclear bomb going off. Kinda fair game, especially, when compared to the granny ad.

    Another ad this a.m. ran trump more “obnoxious” quotes and behavior and showed children watching the tv. Not much hype to that.

    trump has created the image. The clinton campaign is just playing it back. There’s not even much argument to be had that all the quotes have been taken out of context or that the dems are being hyperbolic.

    Bottom Line: It is hardly the clinton campaign and the media making trump look like a bully and unbalanced. It is trump himself!

57. Frog:

    Actually, although I’m not offering some sort of official diagnosis for Trump, I certainly have an educated knowledge of all those terms.

    Saying other presidents and politicians lie at times is not even remotely what people mean when they call someone a pathological liar.

    Trump’s lies are constant, many are non-political in nature and gratuitous, and he’s been lying for a lifetime when he has never been a politician.

58. T:

    Sorry, you’ve still got it wrong.

    Actual impeachment has little or no force compared to the threat—with votes to back it up, and coming from your own party—of impeachment AND conviction. That latter is what happened to Nixon.

    If the GOP senators had threatened Nixon with impeachment only, without the certainly of conviction in the Senate (and it was a certainty they were threatening, by the way) it might indeed have had little or no meaning. The certainty of impeachment, the fact of impeachment, without the actuality of conviction had little or no meaning for Clinton, or at least little meaning.

59. Frog: Actually neo has a Master’s in Family and Marriage Therapy. (It’s in her web bio.) I’ve been reading her since 2005 and she is quite careful about using DSM labels in her writing.

    So I was surprised yesterday when she openly called Trump a “scoiopath.” Not that I disagree, but it is another indication of how over-the-top Trump is that neo, after long thoughtful study, would publicly label Trump a sociopath.

    The rest of us who use such terms for Trump may lack neo’s credentials, but we are trying to say that to us Trump is not just a fella a couple bar stools down who now and then lies, brags or tells a dirty joke. Trump is a whole ‘nother level of bad news.

    Pointing out Hillary’s substantial, terrible defects doesn’t fix that, at least not for me.

60. Trump reminds me very much of my evil stepfather who was a con-man and sexual predator from New York as well as a classical music prodigy. He lied and bragged like he breathed. He was the life of the party. People loved the guy.

    I once went with my stepfather to the supermarket. He was only wearing a bathrobe and boxers, yet within five minutes he had the store manager eagerly escorting him up and down the aisles, putting items in our grocery cart.

    My stepfather’s last letter to my mother before he committed suicide contained several paragraphs literally plagiarized from Nietzsche’s “Beyond Good and Evil” justifying his monstrous life. (I figured this out from Google many years later.)

    There really are people who are way beyond imperfect and quite dangerous. I think Trump is one of them.

61. huxley:

    Please don’t misrepresent what I said about Trump and sociopathy. I did NOT “openly call him a sociopath.” I am very careful about the terms I use (as you say).

    I wrote this: “Trump isn’t an ideologue; he’s a narcissist, a pathological liar, and perhaps a sociopath.”

    That “perhaps” was put in there for a reason. It was neither accidental nor gratuitous.

    I actually have been very careful in the accusations I make towards Trump. I do not believe I have ever called him a sociopath without qualifiers like that, and I’ve rarely used the word at all for him, even with the qualifiers.

62. OK. Noted.

63. I keep thinking of Mencken and Nock. It’s like their ghosts are gleefully shouting to us down the corridors of time: “We TOLD you so!” Given the choice between Trump and Queen Cacklepants, only the Second Amendment would lead me to vote for Trump. But what’s most depressing to me is the rise of the Dumb Trumpkins in the comments section of what one might call the Pro-freedom Blogosphere. (Mercifully, they don’t seem to show up here, or if they have I’ve missed them.) They remind me of the people in the movie IDIOCRACY: “You talk like a fag.”

64. Bilwick:

    Not only have they shown up here, but in droves. They would have taken over the comments section of this blog if I hadn’t been ruthless in getting rid of them.

65. They pretty much have taken over the Breitbart Big Hollywood/Big Government/Big Journalism blog. In a way it’s good they have a forum so people can see how dumb they are. My favorite was when a trailer for the new Woody Allen film was posted on Big Hollywood. I wrote that I was looking forward to a Woody Allen/Steve Carell team-up. In response, some cretin accused me of being a pederast and said the FBI should look at what’s on my computer. No kidding.

66. “They would have taken over the comments section of this blog if I hadn’t been ruthless in getting rid of them.”

    For which we thank you, deeply and sincerely, Neo.

    (I have some idea just how much work that policing can be, having done some of it at Sound Politics some years ago. There the problem was more often leftist trolls, but I expect that Trumpistas would appear there now, too.

    I found myself spending more time polcing the comments than writng posts, and finally started closing the few posts I was writing.)

67. “They pretty much have taken over the Breitbart Big Hollywood/Big Government/Big Journalism blog. In a way it’s good they have a forum so people can see how dumb they are. “ – Bilwick

    Actually, this sparked a thought.

    I hardly ever get to breitbarf nowadays, but those people always existed there, only they were not quite as overwhelming as they became when I left, and no doubt still are – probably because the rest of us left, so any modicum of reasonable conversation has attrited.

68. Jim Miller:

    You’re welcome!

    When the blog first started, I had a lot of leftist trolls. Some were very vocal and persistent, and threatened to destroy the blog because I was on Blogger and back then there weren’t good tools for banning on Blogger. That’s why I moved to WordPress years ago. Otherwise the blog probably would have ended a long time ago.

    It wasn’t until this election cycle that most of the trolls came from the right (or ostensibly from the right—they sounded so much like the old leftist trolls that I began to wonder, and still do, about a lot of them).

    The nice thing, though, is that generally these things come in waves. When you take care of a wave of them, word seems to get out that this isn’t a place that’s easy to take over, and the bulk of them go on to easier pickings. So the rate of arrival slows down after that first flush. At least, that’s what appears to me to be happening.

69. Pathological liar. Seems pretty serious. Like it’s a pathology of some kind. Very clinical.

    What if I said he really is a compulsive liar? Doesn’t that seem more tolerable?

    What if he’s just a careless liar?

    If you google “pathological liar” do you know what the first result is? Hillary Clinton. Really. Google it.

    I looked at the top 101 lies that Trump has told and many were exaggerations, some were white lies and some were classic lies– falsehoods attempting to deceive.

    Pathological, to me, implies he is unable of not lying, which is simply not true. He wouldn’t have been able to do the deals, develop the properties he has if he couldn’t be believed.

    Now it would be nice if Trump were more like Mitt Romney, more careful speaking, more clinical with facts.

    Will he be able to negotiate with world leaders. Sure. I suspect if being a billionaire does one thing, it gives you confidence. It makes you comfortable on a world stage.

70. Brian E:

    Are you serious? Trump wouldn’t have been able to do the deals if he’d been lying? Ask the people of Scotland what they think about that (see this and this). Ask all the people who’ve sued him, including those who fell for the Trump U scam.

    And how about trying to look up the names of the hundreds of friends he lost on 9/11?

    And yes, “compulsive liar” works just as well.

    And of course even pathological liars and compulsive liars sometimes tell the truth. And they also often lie strategically, to get something, what you have referred to as “classic lies.” But sometimes they just lie out of habit, and for fun (which I suppose you could argue is “getting something out of it,” too). Trump has that same mix, but any website listing his lies during the campaign is going to concentrate on the more political and strategic ones.

    A “white lie” traditionally refers to a harmless lie told for socially acceptable reasons that are positive–such as,for example, saying a woman’s dress is pretty when it’s not. I don’t think you mean “white lies” with Trump, I think you mean relatively trivial lies? Is that correct? If so, it’s another indication that he lies for fun, for sport, when there’s even less strategic reason to do so.

    And he isn’t just doing this during this campaign. It’s a lifelong thing for him.

71. Are you serious? Trump wouldn’t have been able to do the deals if he’d been lying? Ask the people of Scotland what they think about that (see this and this). Ask all the people who’ve sued him, including those who fell for the Trump U scam.
    And how about trying to look up the names of the hundreds of friends he lost on 9/11?
    And yes, “compulsive liar” works just as well. – Neo

    ____
    There are so many points to make here, let’s see if I can sort them out.
    Pathalogical vs Compulsive Liar

    My objection to using the term “pathalogical” is the sinister quality to the term. It has been used by the left and I suppose neverTrumpers, but is it accurate?

    Pathalogical lying is when you tell a story of how you landed in a plane while it was taking fire from the enemy.

    Saying you saw thousands of Arabs cheering the fall of the Towers, or the hundreds of friends you lost in the bombing, is not.
    It may be calculated but it’s probably just hyperbole.
    Kind of like when I started to write that most of his lies were exaggerations. That’s an exaggeration itself. So I wrote “many of his lies were exaggerations”. I might have written “some of his lies were exaggerations”, but you know I just wasn’t willing to take the time to quantify the list.
    We’re all guilty of carelessness with quantifiers.
    _______
    From a Politifact article:
    …. Bending the truth or being unhampered by accuracy is a strategy he has followed for years.
    “People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That’s why a little hyperbole never hurts,” Trump wrote in his 1987 best-seller The Art of the Deal. “People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole. It’s an innocent form of exaggeration – and a very effective form of promotion.”
    That philosophy guided Trump in luxury real estate and reality television. This year he brought it to the world of presidential politics.
    Trump has “perfected the outrageous untruth as a campaign tool,” said Michael LaBossiere, a philosophy professor at Florida A&M University who studies theories of knowledge. “He makes a clearly false or even absurdly false claim, which draws the attention of the media. He then rides that wave until it comes time to call up another one.”
    http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2015/dec/21/2015-lie-year-donald-trump-campaign-misstatements/
    ______
    I object when a conservative uses the term pathological liar, since it’s not completely accurate. And I don’t think it benefits the country to elect a true pathological liar who will take the corruption of the executive branch to new levels.

    As to Trump’s golf resort developments in Scotland, the Atlantic article is a hit piece and I’m surprised you would link to it. The Independent article is more accurate and balanced.

    I worked one summer surveying a resort development in the scablands of eastern Washington. It was totally useless land, outcroppings of basalt with a thin layer of caliche, sagebrush and rattlesnakes were its greatest features. What were the developers thinking? It seemed incredulous to us six college students that anyone would buy a lot on this inhospitable land.
    But up went the signs– residential lots for $1995.
    The plans showed a complete western town as part of the development, and the marketing was directed mostly to the Japanese who were obsessed about the “old West” and to easterners who would likely buy the property sight unseen.
    Anyway, the oil embargo hit, the economy stalled and the developers filed bankruptcy. The people who had bought lots of course sued and as part of the settlements a clubhouse was built with tennis courts and a swimming pool.

    What does this have to do with Trump? While you may not have wanted to invest in property on seeming wasteland, had the economy not faltered, the development probably would have succeeded. There is a sort of primitive, unsullied beauty to the area, and a great coulee meandered by, harkening to epoch ages that carved out much of the land. A horse track was even built in the base of the coulee, promoted by one of the greatest Rodeo cowboys of the time, to no avail. It now sits in decay, slowing giving way to the harsh climate it tried to exploit.
    Today when you drive by the development, you’ll see a weathered sign, barely legible with it’s promise of $1995 to own a piece of Western lore, scattered RV’s permanently placed on their owner’s land and a Western themed clubhouse, it’s lights shining as a beacon at dusk to a noble or foolish attempt to make the lore of the Old West come alive or cheat people with a wasteland, depending on your point of view.
    When developers like Trump take on a project, they see a vision, but that vision is subject to the vagaries of local politics, an economy that may fall at an inopportune time, and a risk that they can lose it all.

    I’m betting on Trump.

72. Brian E:

    If you want to argue over the semantics of “pathological liar” versus “compulsive liar,” be my guest. Either if fine with me to describe Trump.

    As for the Atlantic link, it’s not a hit piece. I have read probably every article that exists on the subject of Trump and Scotland, and also read a biography of Trump that goes into it quite deeply, and written many posts on it. I merely put the Atlantic article up there as a summary that’s easy to find. I am highly conversant with what happened there, and Trump lied—among other things.

    I repeat: being a compulsive and/or pathological liar doesn’t stop him from making deals. It has helped him make certain deals, actually.

73. Actually I lied.
    I was part of the survey crew in the summer of 1971 and the oil embargo didn’t occur until 1973.
    And there was a sign offering lots for $1995, but it was about 20 miles away on the closest main road, not next to the development.
    Other than that, it’s completely accurate!

    And the reason I know it was 1971 was by the end of the summer, the developers were running out of money and we weren’t getting paid. So the survey crew (five of us) left to fight the Entiat fire. Good times, except we never did get paid.

74. Here’s some examples of the negative imagery and pejorative characterizations that litter the Atlantic article, why it qualifies as a hit piece.

    “Trumps Tortured History”

    “Trump has sought to emphasize his ties with Scotland; in return, he’s earned loathing in Midlothian and antipathy in Ayrshire.”

    “stopping by the cottage where his mother was born (for 97 seconds…)”

    “Trump had an ulterior motive for thise warm words..”
    “That didn’t stop Trump from whining throughout the process…”

    ” The release was not popular in Scotland or the United Kingdom. Trump’s son Donald Jr. gleefully blasted Salmond…”

    “Trump wasted no time stabbing Salmond in the back…”

    No mention in the Atlantic article, like in the Independent of the still positive from the local government about Trump’s resort and noted that the poor economy had a large part in some of the project.

    “Local councillor Isobel Davidson said there was no evidence in the short term of Trump creating 6,000 jobs.
    “It might happen in the long term,” she said, speaking from her office in Aberdeenshire. “There are far more rooms available [in Aberdeenshire hotels] than there were five years ago.”

    She added: “As far as I know the course is not as well used as was hoped. Other local courses are considerably cheaper. A large part of that is down to the [poor] economy.” She said however that she and fellow councillors would still welcome further investment, and that if Mr Trump pulled out, he “presumably would find another buyer”.

    Councillor Davidson said it would be a “real shame” if Mr Trump pulled out of the Ayrshire golf course as she said it was much more likely to hit international success.”

    You can be critical and still be fair. The Atlantic piece certainly was critical and certainly not fair.

75. And two more points.

    While the resort itself employs 200, how many additional jobs supporting the resort did it create? I assume that’s what Trump’s 6000 was referring to.

    And the large point. Not all real estate development succeed. And people don’t get paid. There is nothing sinister or malevolent about it. The ones that succeed have a large multiplier effect to the economy.

    Trump understands that. That’s why I’m betting on Trump.

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