Trump the conservative?
Unexpected (and certainly unexpected by me) but so far true:
In assessing Trump’s accomplishments, let’s not get too distracted by his unconventional conduct. This hitherto ideologically unmoored man has set in motion an administration arguably more conservative than Ronald Reagan’s.
I’m still not thrilled with his style and some of his actions, but he seems to be learning the job fast, and his opponents get crazier and/or more evil every week. I didn’t vote for him a year ago. I suspect I would today.
now ask WHY with over 95% negative press, and games you didnt know what he was like??? why would he be a surprise if you did? what made you “get it wrong” like almost everyone else?
propaganda works..
hard part is to learn enough and whats missing so it dont work. knowing it, is not enough…
now the larger question is how many others do you have these similar not right ideas about and images? given the dichotomy i learned from meeting them, and hanging out with them, i learned fast being part of it, how much your ideas are the same wrong as others, or alternative wrong, but seldom are anywhere even in the ball park on people and who they are…
artfldgr:
I will answer your question once again (I’ve stated the answer before), but if you actually read my blog you would know the reason, and it’s not what I read in the paper or what was essentially propaganda.
It was Trump’s own words, which I studied. Not so much his words during the campaign—although he was inconsistent and contradictory there, too, often saying something and then negating it and/or taking it back and taking a much more liberal position almost immediately, or soon—but I was also paying attention to his own words during the last two decades or so. He said so many liberal things that it is hard to count, on many many topics. That’s why I kept referring to his political positions as “mutable.” He demonstrated that himself.
I pay attention to people’s words. I fully documented all of this during the time of Trump’s campaign, in many posts here.
Ain’t that something? There are those that think Trump plays a very deep game, and that the weird Tweets are meant to distract from the serious work taking place. I kind of doubt that. But he is doing things. And the shrill reaction of the Dems convinces people that while he has flaws, the other side….
While Trump wasn’t my first choice, I decided some years ago that only over my dead body would I cast a vote for a Democrat candidate for President. This from a former Democrat voter.
I like what he has done regarding judicial appointments and federal regulations. I wish he would do something about reining in federal spending- ignore the “heartless” cries from the Demos.
people often say children are the best judges of true character. Children love Trump, you can find plenty of examples on youtube and social medias.
The Dems could have coopted him, especially given his background and essential beliefs which are fairly liberal.
Before the election they thought they were invincible – they promoted him as their opposition candidate after all – and after the election they thought they were too good for Trump and his filthy deplorables.
So instead, they turned on him viciously, and Trump does not forget or forgive. Way too much ego to go along, get along.
Clearly, the GOP is no longer the only Stupid Party.
Trump’s beliefs are basically democrat beliefs in the 80s/90s akin to 90s Bill Clinton. During the George W and Obama Eras the democrats had dramatically moved to the far left progressive spectrum, leaving Trump whose beliefs haven’t changed much since the 90s as the right and conservative. If you have a time machine and kidnap bill clinton from the 90s to now he would be considered a trump-like conservative.
I thought Trump would be good for the simple reason that he
Loves the USA. The Democrats hate America, which is part of the reason that they their pillaging.
“…arguably more conservative than Ronald Reagan’s.”
Heh.
Steve Hayward is a smart guy and he actually wrote a book about Reagan.
opps, last words should be “reason that they justify their pillaging”
With some obvious exception, I see djt as a dem from the era of Scoop Jackson/Pat Moynihan. Gorsuch, rolling back the bereaucracy are good things. As a Cruz supoorter, I now support djt. He truly loves the USA, and despite his often strange demeanor, he has my little voice of support.
The fact that he has unmasked the batsh*t crazy legions of the far left as batsh*t crazy is three scoops of ice cream and several boxes of koi food.
Reagan defeated communism and ushered the world into the age of triumphant capitalism.
Trump is waging war on at least one of the pillars of Global Capitalism (Comparative Advantage / Free Trade) and offers almost nothing but praise for a man who thinks the Collapse of Communism was the worst event in Russian history.
Anyone who believes any story coming out of the network news or the dead tree media will believe anything. Even the doubters should have learned by now.
Haha, Manju another Dem trying to make Joe McCarthy look like a pinko because they lost the election.
Why do the msm like cnn still refer to the right wing new media as fake news as conspiracy theorists and fake news when 90% of what they had reported during the election turned out to be absolutely true. Hillary took money from Russia to sell them our uranium with Obama’s blessing and Hillary stealing the election from Bernie were all true, who was spreading fake news and who were gospeling real news? Pizzagate? How far fetched is it really that there exists a democrats operating underage prostitution service network after the exposition that the high ranking left is full of sexual predators like Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey. They called it a conspiracy when the right wing media suggested that Seth rich was allegedly assassinated for his role in the leaking of doc emails, and now you have the ex chair of doc worrying about meeting the same faith as him. Tbh Alex Jones has a better track record of reporting plausible news than cnn.
Happy Anniversary (from the Winter Palace!!!)…
I pay attention to people’s words. I fully documented all of this during the time of Trump’s campaign, in many posts here.
I pay attention to ACTIONS..
ie. the whole of socialism is lying and games playing and the only way to see any truth is in actions. a man who loves his wife and says so for 30 years does not chop her up…
actions speak louder than words is how the point goes
but dissimulation is done in what?
look.. i am the cookie that has brought things up on average five years ahead of their actual appearance in the news and obscure things…
your point above is “hey, his actions didnt match the words I collected from waht he said that was selected for me by the press, and i forget all that he said that was not reported as i never heard it, and boy am i surprised he has been conservative down the line”
did you see the game CNN played with feeding coi?
Trump did the same thing that Abe did. EXACTLY the same… ie. mimickry in relationships helps being liked…
however CNN cut the Abe part of the video, and so everyone on the left decided to make up insults pretending they were japanese..
now… if you never saw that other video, ie. heard what the images had to say, you would think what? even more so after the yelling how he insulted japan.
but having autism, everyone lies to me…
everyone plays games right in front of me with some slick feeling that they think i dont know it, or cant see it, or other things…
i mean you can go to about 100 sources and find the same old same old that ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS… and IF you paid attention to his whole career like fans do, you might know the actions and things that the news did not have time to tell you or did not want you to know, or played games and such wiht the facts.
What are actions? A deed that is done. In other words, something that you say you will do and then go on and do it. What happens is simple. When you commit to a deed and fulfill it, people are literally able to see that you are a person of your word. You will be able to relate to the fact that in this world full of discrepancy and deception, it is not easy for anyone to accept everything that comes out of your mouth. By acting upon what you say, you create a world of trust where people will know that you do what you say.
i had argued that my first girlfriend was a social register debutant (old money). that i know bloomberg, Trump, Nast family, clinton family and even worked for a couple of years with Bill Cosby… and i count the Hilton family as people i have known for 10 years….
and yet… nothing means anything.
politicians win by words, we forget their actions
billionaires dont become billionaires by being cheats… at least not in the lying cheating sense that the average people think of… all the paper in the world and all the expensive lawyers in the world mean noting to a person who can lose 25 million to make a point and walk away.
not one iota of experience is allowed to enter these arguments nor is the whole histories, or is even the idea of the fact of HOW BAD the press is… and has been since Duranty and before… but how many know the history of the press and its changes, an what movements did waht, and who did what, and onwards.
all these odd names no one remembers, munzenberg, katz, rote zora, and more…
but Trump? i said he has NEVER been liked by the press and yet that means nothing. i said i worked for the press and was part of that machine that did things that you have no idea how bad they are AS NORMS.
i said that what you GET TO HEAR is the bad parts, and has been that way for 40 years on Trump… never anyh other way… and yet, you thought you can peer through the words? not actions? not his lawsuits, not the actual squatting game that first started with attacking bob guccione, the farmers house, the wolman rink, the towers, the other things that he follows the bible on (do not tell the world what good you do, for your reward is in heaven… be not like the hippocrites!!! they have recieved their rewards already!!!!)
“Walk the walk…talk ain’t necessary” ~ George Akomas Jr
“Jesus Christ said ‘by their fruits ye shall know them,’ not by their disclaimers.” ~ William S. Burroughs
that one above is very important… you judge a man by his works, not by his words… even god in the torah wanted behaviors over words!!!!!
in both christianity and in judaism, your not here to chit chat but to act…
Rabbi Baruch HaLevi
Thoughts do more. Words to much. Actions do much more.” ~ Israelmore Ayivor
“If your actions don’t live up to your words, you have nothing to say.”
― DaShanne Stokes
[what if your actions exceed your words????]
“In leadership, life and all things it’s far wiser to judge people by their deeds than their speech – their track record rather than their talk” — Rasheed Ogunlaru”
“Dreams become regrets when left in the mind, never planted in the soil of action.”
― Auliq-Ice
“Actions speak louder than words. Words cost nothing. Actions can cost everything.”
― Aleksandra Layland, Of Wisdom and Valor: The Art of War. The Path of Peace. ― Rasheed Ogunlaru
“People can play dumb all they want, but they always give themselves away in actions. In the small moments, like that.”
― Stephanie Perkins, Isla and the Happily Ever After
“Words are important; actions are vital, but don’t just show your thoughts through your words or actions! Let your unique works speak your thought and action!”
― Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
manju makes a typical mistake.
Free Trade is, as he pointed out, a pillar of Capitalism.
What we’ve had for the last two decades, though, is MANAGED trade.
It is not Capitalism.
Corporations only care about making their stock holders money. Moving operations out of the US can save companies Billions. Especially since container ships have driven down the cost of international shipping drastically.
What has happened has been great for those of us in the investor class. Those unwilling or unable to invest have been marginalized and are hurting.
President Trump is trying to address THAT issue by making the world a level playing field for capital. Instead of a playtoy for the financial arbitrage of the last few decades.
He understands because constructing buildings in America can’t be outsourced. While the steel may come from overseas the assembly work has to be done on location.
I echo neo on the reasons for not voting for Trump. For some reason many Trumpsters are convinced that if someone doesn’t like him, it is because they have believed the MSM lies about him. There can be no other reason. I notice it at other sites as well. I find it concerning.
Tuvea Says:
November 7th, 2017 at 9:39 am
Globalism is even more of a TAX DODGE than it is one of production advantage.
At first glance, production out of Mexico or Red China appears to be motivated by a cost advantage.
However, quality issues, distance to market, etc. erode those numbers.
What really kicks in: the ability to move profits overseas — which is how and why Apple has such a fantastic horde at this time.
( ~ $250,000,000,000 )
It’s only off shore in terms of the paperwork. Apple’s money is largely invested in US Treasuries.
Trump is trying to get US corporate tax rates down to world norms, for it’s plain that our current rates drive manufactures overseas just on the tax angle alone.
This reality is never brought up by the talking heads.
European politicians have figured this all out — and are furious.
They can no longer soak corporations — theirs our ours — to feed their socialist dreams.
artfldgrs:
I pay attention to people’s words when we don’t have actions. During the campaign, Trump’s political history was 100% limited to words, and the history of his actions were his actions as a private businessman not a politician or an office-holder of any type.
When I said I paid attention to his words, it was obvious by the context (which was that I was responding to your original comment) that I meant as opposed to the garbage newspapers might print about him, or distortions of his words. I paid attention to what he was saying during the campaign and what he had said for decades before (actual quotes, that is, not someone else’s interpretation of quotes), and of course what he was doing as a candidate. But he had no track record of actions as an officeholder at the time, unlike most people running for political office who have some sort of political record of what they have done while holding a lower office.
Just as obviously, now that Trump has been president for about 3/4 of a year, I have been paying attention to his actions over his words. That should be clear to anyone who reads this blog.
Well said, Neo; well said.
AMartel Says:
November 6th, 2017 at 5:36 pm
The Dems could have coopted him, especially given his background and essential beliefs which are fairly liberal.
Before the election they thought they were invincible — they promoted him as their opposition candidate after all — and after the election they thought they were too good for Trump and his filthy deplorables.
* * *
Well said.
They were caught between a rock and a hard place once Trump had the nomination. They had to demonize him and his supporters in order (so they thought) to win; after they lost, they couldn’t take it back, even though Trump himself might have written it off as typical campaign rhetoric (his own jabs at the GOP candidates were mostly verbiage, IMO) and worked with them amicably enough to get drawn back into the Dem circles (note that he has NOT categorically dissed all D-Congress-members or the rank-and-file, just particular individuals).
However, backtracking would mean that their base would go even more ballistic, and the committed Trump voters would never accept their maneuvers even if Trump did which might have limited his responses to their wooing.
Plus, they just flat hate conservatives and Republicans: Hillary said so explicitly too many times to kiss and make up.
Aesop, I don’t think Trum or his Hillary friends that recommended going to have fun wrecking the Republican primaries ever believed that Trum could win the nomination.
It was a surprising strategy problem for the Democrats now that their spoiler or dark horse stalking horse in the Republican primaries actually won.
Trum being Trum, he wasn’t going to give up the Presidency just because of his Democrat allies. With the promise of Steve Bannon and the ALt Right backing Trum, he could have a realistic chance now.
Trum has always been obsessed with conspiracies like JFK assassination. The Alt Right is perfect for those sorts, because it combines Deep State paranoia with political and religious and philosophical trends. I know, ironic for me to talk about “other people’s paranoia”.
I find it concerning.
Human band wagons, Assistant. Same as usual.
If I use Hussein, the REpublicans at least don’t say anything negative about it. The moment I use “Trum”, now suddenly the potential Trum supporters call it childish, immature, and something they can’t go along with.
Could have fooled me for 8 years on Obola.
When I hear people say that they judge Trump by his words and find them severely wanting I’m convinced, as I repeatedly said during the election, that they are guilty of taking his words literally instead of figuratively. Trump cannot be judged by politically correct standards because he doesn’t care what people that listen to his words instead of his meanings think. I get the impression that he has little time or inclination to deal with such things.
To me, listening to his words and judging them by contemporary politically correct standards is similar to judging historical figures by those standards. They just don’t apply. Polite discourse may be fine for politicians but many successful businessmen have a preference for more direct words. Also, many successful businessmen pay more attention to the details of the deals than how they’re presented.
When I listened to Trump during the campaign I listened to his words in the context of a successful businessman who also happened to have a personality that I didn’t particularly care for. However, I never let that personality affect my evaluation of his qualities as a candidate.
I would love to have a candidate with the admirable personal qualities of Reagan such as his quick wit, his famously endearing smile and his self-deprecating humour along with a sincerely conservative political philosophy. But such people are few and far between and there certainly wasn’t one available in the list of candidates.
So, if I can’t have it all, then I evaluate based on other qualities in their order of importance, the first of which is trustworthiness and the very last of which is personality.
A great many people have found Trump trustworthy. The businessmen who have dealt with him have found him honest enough to deal with him over and over. His employees have, by a large margin, said he is a great boss. His family displays the values he has given them and they certainly seem to be happy and successful as well. His children really seem to like and respect him too. He’s even on good terms with his ex-wife.
Unfortunately for a politician, Trump has a working-class sense of humour and mannerisms. He speaks roughly, especially when talking in an all male situation. He makes crude jokes. However, his language is polite and respectful when in mixed company. I really like that!
He brags incessantly and exaggerates excessively when making a point. I know he’s often not technically correct when bragging but it doesn’t rise to the level of lying in my book. It’s not politically correct but I know a lot of people with that type of personality who are worthwhile in spite of it. I can stand to occasionally cringe at his words. I can easily get past his personality because it just isn’t as important as his results. We teach students that the best indicator of future success is past success. Trump certainly has that in spades.
That’s how I evaluated him during the election and I think enough people thought that way as well that it got him elected.
Since the election he’s worked every day to live up to my expectations, both in accomplishments for the good and in personality for the bad. I’ll take that and the fact that Hillary isn’t president as enough for me.
Tuvea:
Trade between nations increases the real wages of both nations. This is textbook econ (which isn’t to say you can’t challenge it with data, but rather that it’s relatively uncontroversial).
How? For a poor nations, jobs obviously. For rich ones, the key word is “real”. Our (real) wages go up when prices go down, right? I mean, if you made 100K in 1980 and 110K today, your real income, because of inflation, went down, even though the number on the check is higher.
This principle works in reverse. Cheaper goods coming from those poor nations who “stole” our jobs make us richer.
Take a look at this graph. The price of things that can’t be outsourced (Healthcare, education, etc) has skyrocketed in real dollars, ie controlled for inflation.
Meanwhile, the price of things that can be outsourced has plummeted.
That’s how capitalist world order established after the end of the Cold War benefits us, while simultaneously bringing the world’s poor out of poverty. That’s why Putin wants to dismantle this system.
And that’s why he hates Hillary and Obama.
I read through the other entries at the link, which run 8-2 against Trump and the GOP (VDH and Hayward are the “pro” faction). It’s good to see some diversity though: the other 8 were all down on Trump for different reasons.
Erin Kaplan’s thesis was almost funny.
“It used to be that a president, whatever his party or ideology, understood that he represented all Americans, and it was assumed he spoke for us all in his public remarks. When Trump speaks, or tweets, we know he’s addressing his core supporters – white, resentful and disproportionately powerful: the base.”
Obviously, she thought Obama was serious in the inspirational parts of his speeches (some of them did sound pretty good, out of context), and ignored the parts addressing his core supporters.
Norman Ornstein is also living in an alternate universe.
“Sources as disparate as CNN, National Review, the Hill and the Week have recently referred to “the Republican Civil War.””
Well, NR is the certainly the most conservative (except about Trump), and CNN is certainly more rabid than the other two, but calling them “disparate” is displaying a really nuanced palate for viewpoint.
AMartel Says:
November 6th, 2017 at 5:36 pm
The Dems could have coopted him, especially given his background and essential beliefs which are fairly liberal.
Before the election they thought they were invincible — they promoted him as their opposition candidate after all — and after the election they thought they were too good for Trump and his filthy deplorables.
* * *
Revisiting this with a post from American Greatness:
https://amgreatness.com/2017/11/07/anatomy-of-a-witch-hunt/
The liberal media began calling for the undermining of Trump’s presidency from almost the moment he was elected. For example, on November 17, 2016, Paul Waldman opined in the Washington Post that President-elect Trump “shouldn’t ever be treated like an ordinary president with whom Democrats just have some substantive disagreements,” while Dahlia Lithwick and David S. Cohen insisted in the New York Times on December 14, “As Monday’s Electoral College vote approaches, Democrats should be fighting tooth and nail.”
With respect to the Electoral College itself, Theodore G. Venetoulis proclaimed in the Baltimore Sun that it was “the electors’ duty” to reject Trump and let the U.S. House of Representatives pick the president. Venetoulis’ plea went nowhere. However, Richard Cohen took the inevitable next step when, on January 9, he outlined in his Washington Post column “how to remove Trump from office.” Of course, Trump didn’t actually take office until January 20, 2017–a not-so-minor detail that Cohen failed to appreciate.
….
Irv:
You certainly have put forward a brave face in regard to Trump. I won’t dispute the conservative stuff he’s done, from the judicial appointments to rescinding regulations. It’s also a matter of personal interpretation whether he is just sloppy in making contradictory statements or is a liar who can’t keep his stories straight.
What is without question is that his business ethics are terrible. He’s left investors holding the bag by declaring bankruptcy a number of times. He is known for fleecing suppliers. He’s used eminent domain to obtain property under market value. He’s regularly bought and paid for political favors. He’s refused to release ANY tax statements which indicates he has something to hide that won’t stand public scrutiny. As to his business success (he is a billionaire supposedly) it is built in large part on scams (Trump University) and selling his notoriety and fame.
Yes, give the man credit for an unexpected conservative streak since he was sworn in. However, as to his personality, ethics, and integrity…?
TOC = Saying something is without question is simply your judgment of that something. I could argue with every point you made here which states the anti-Trump case very well.
Just one example: he’d have to be crazy to release his very complicated tax returns when not absolutely necessary. Tax returns as complicated as his are very very easy to demonize and there’s no reason to give canon fodder to his enemies. It doesn’t automatically mean there’s something nefarious in them.
The other items you mentioned are also subject to interpretation. If you like him, as I do, then you give him the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise. If you dislike him then you assume the worst as you have done. So far, in my book, he’s earned the benefit of the doubt.
Irv & TOC:
Without taking a position pro or con on Trump’s ethics, the deciding factor for me in the election (whether to vote for DJT or abstain) boiled down to the consideration that we had never yet elected a perfectly-pure President (including Washington); that many of them had been unquestionably ethically questionable (including our most recent one); and that, even if every charge held up, he still had a LONG way to go to be worse than Hillary and the Clintons.
I would have said, some years ago, that in re the business dealings, the courts should make that decision (innocent until proven guilty), but given the current state of affairs, and depending on the adjudicators, I’m not entirely sure now that I would agree with the verdicts.
Some people look for Jesus as their US President. Some ideal Messiah like Hussein, to save their souls in America’s Utopia.
I do not.
The other problem is that of nationalist propaganda. The country is sustained by the people. Regardless of what kind of leader you have, you can endure it. But when 51% of the people become irredeemable and corrupt, it truly is game over.
The last time that happened in US history, it took Civil War 1 to fix it, temporarily. Slavery was not destroyed, just replaced with Utopian Slavery 3.0
Blood of tyrants, and just blood in general, cleanses human evil. This is a concept found throughout Leviticus and other rituals of animal sacrifice in the Torah, first 5 books of the Old Testament. A Founding Father talked about it, Jefferson I believe with his tree of liberty image.
Lincoln also figured it out before he died, that it was the blood itself that was shed in the CW that fixed America’s moral issues.
A lot of people think Jesus died and shed his blood, so that means everyone is safe. I don’t think so. There’s not enough blood for all the things humans are doing.
What humanity got pardoned for was what the Divine Flood was against and the previous transgressions at the Tower of Babel, where Nimrod Emperor of Humanity decided it was take to build a portal to heaven to kill/replace the Most High. And the time when elohim descended to Mount Hermon in the days of Jared and taught humans all kinds of things that created evil. Violation of the Prime Directive, Thou shall not educate primitives on angel and god tech.
Trum has become a lightning rod, a distraction or smoke and mirrors, for many factions in the US. The problem for Americans has always been other Americans. Presidents come and go, the System does not. The IRS does not go away. Even if you try to get rid of it, it is more likely they get rid of You and Disappear You.
JFK assassination. That was a US President. Just went and disappeared because JFK was digging into areas of the US gov he shouldn’t have been. There are presentations of the assassination video, that certain people recently have talked about from the White House. Why are there screenings of this video, to whom and for what reason?
Trum put the title of “Lying Ted” to Cruz and the Alt Right attacked Ted’s character for having a Goldman Sachs wife. Now Trum has hired a bunch of Goldman Sachs boys on his admin roll.
But Trum supporters and even potential Trum supporters are more bothered by me using Trum instead of his trade marked last name.
That’s not Trum’s problem and sin, that’s America’s problem and sin. That’s a human problem. You can’t get rid of it by electing or un electing Trum.
Trum is treated as Azazel, the sacrificial goat. Azarael. The El meaning he was elohim and a watcher.
Americans do not have enough time to continue pouring the problems of American problems unto one individual in DC, hoping it’ll go away that way.
The sacrificial goat, the scape goat, is a very old archetype. Push all the sins and evils of humanity unto the goat, push it off away from the community and Holy territory, and then kick it off a cliff so that it will die and never climb back up.
The reason why solid characters don’t survive in DC is because they aren’t meant to survive there. Americans use up heroes the way jihadists use up suicide bombers.